


pedicabo te et irrumabo, or, Balancing Act

by arenoseAnima



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, BDSM, F/F, Horrible Analogies, Humanstuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-09-20
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-23 21:29:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/255201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arenoseAnima/pseuds/arenoseAnima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victoria Serket goes to law school and finds it takes more effort than she expected. Especially when other people get involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

On your first day of class at Charles Dutton University you discover your new archenemy.

On your second day, you discover that she is in all eight of your classes.

She is absolutely _infuriating_. Your professors’ empty requests for questions – just a _formality_ , you’ve been going to school for twelve years and you _know_ this by now, and so should all these other floundering idiots – are always, _always_ answered by something _penetrating_ and _insightful_ from the stupid blind girl with her stupid braille laptop and her _stupid_ headphones in just one stupid little ear. All the professors _love_ her, _especially_ the head of the law department, Ms. Querido, who you’d already singled out for flattery to help boost your grades. Now the fucking harpy won’t even look at you. Every time Pyrope opens her chapstick-slathered mouth you want to leap across the room and reenact Brooks and Sumner. You’re sure the rest of the students would thank you… until you catch a couple of them conversing eagerly with her in the hall after class, practically pressing her up against the wall and sticking her there with babbled questions. You think you might have seen one of them asking her for an autograph.

The spotlight should be on you, you you you, not some pantywaist blind girl who looks like she just got off the plane from Eat A Sandwichville. _You_ are _obviously_ the most important person in the school and going to go on to great things after you get your degree and learn what holes you can slip through. _She_ looks like her greatest ambition in life is to be a small-town Southern lawyer and read airport novels in her spare time. She wears shirts with _dragons_ on them. You cannot believe she could have possibly made it to college without being mocked into the ground for her earnest intelligence and obliquely friendly manner. There has to be something more. She’s hiding a brilliantly devious legal mind, or she’s a serial killer, or she eats babies or something, _something_ to make her… interesting.

Everyone else is small potatoes when compared with her. Nobody else grates you quite as badly, not even your roommate, Paula. Paula Leijon is a diminutive girl in a poorly-knit cap and a coat far too big for her small frame. On a good day you probably would already have locked her in the bathroom for three days, but she’s only vaguely registering on the outskirts of your brain even though you _live_ with her. Still, she’s definitely the most _annoying_ girl you have ever had the misfortune to encounter. Before either of you even moved in she emailed you for weeks asking the most irrelevant crap: do you like cats? (no), what color of stuff are you going to decorate with? (blue), do you like to roleplay? (yes, but like hell you’re telling _her_ that). She was irritating enough then, and when you meet her in person you find out she has a voice like Thumbelina mainlining helium and won’t shut up about her bestest best friend in the whole world oh my god Vicky you won’t believe how great he is, who, from what you can gather, is a football player who draws a lot of really bad horse porn that she had tacked up on the front of your door until you ripped every last inexplicably-stained sheet down.

You have such a migraine by the middle of the week you seek solace with the girl who has _allegedly_ been your best friend since elementary school. Really you just keep her around for occasional fashion advice and an ego boost, since you’ve known she had a crush on you ever since an anonymous valentine showed up in your bag in third grade, carefully written in neat jade cursive and asking “Will You Be My Garden Spider?.” She tried to pretend that Mysterious Anonymous Infatuant wasn’t her when you teased her. She is attending the Increase Mather School of Art and Design for _fashion_ , of all the idiotic things you could get a degree in. But you have to admit she’s… not all _that_ bad. Sometimes. Especially when you need a pick-me-up.

 You log on to Pesterchum while Paula is off romancing a scratching post or something.

\-- arachnidsGavel [AG] began pestering gucciAristocrat [GA] --   
AG: Kal!!!!!!!!   
GA: Yes Victoria What Is It  
GA: How Are You Enjoying College So Far  
GA: I Find That My Own Experience Has Been Quite Enjoyable   
AG: Oh my g8d, my roomm8 is a total 8itch!  
AG: She won’t shut up a8out c8ts and her 8oyfriend who loves horses.  
AG: And she put up a 8unch of stupid drawings of herself kissing that guy from 8leach.  
AG: And she wears this ugly kn8 cap all the time that smells like she hasn’t washed it in like 8 years.  
AG: G8 me out of here!   
GA: Oh Hush Hush Now Dont Fuss So Much Dear  
GA: Im Sure It Will Get Better If You Just Give It Some Time  
GA: Just  
GA: W8   
AG: Hahahahahahahaha!  
AG: Whatever, I’m not worried a8out her anyway. There’s this other girl I TOTALLY H8.   
GA: Oh Really   
AG: Yeah!!!!!!!!  
AG: She’s even MORE of a huge 8itch!  
AG: She’s so smart and cl8ver and f8cking p8rf8ct I j8st w8nt t8 ch8ke h8r t8 d8th!!!!!!!!   
GA: Oh  
GA: Oh Dear  
GA: Victoria Breathe For A Moment You Are Getting Upset  
GA: In Through Your Nose  
GA: Out Through Your Mouth  
GA: Shoosh Shoosh   
AG: Ugh. Sorry.  
AG: She just m8kes me so mad!  
AG: And she’s in ALL my classes.  
AG: ALL OF THEM.  
AG: Uggggggggh.   
GA: Couldnt You Just Ignore Her  
GA: She Cant Be That Bad  
GA: Have You Talked Yet   
AG: No!!!!!!!! I’d rather cut out my own tongue than talk to her!  
AG: And I can’t ignore her when she gets c8lled on for like every single question.  
AG: I h8 my life!  
GA: You Are Being A Drama Queen Again Dear  
AG: S8rry, I guess.  
GA: Its Okay This Is A Very Stressful Time For Us All  
AG: How come YOU’RE still the s8me as alw8ys?  
GA: Ive Already Made A New Friend And All My Classes Are Delightful Its Very Exciting  
AG: B8lly for you!  
AG: Who’s this friend????????  
GA: Oh Im Sure You Wouldnt Find Her Very Interesting  
GA: Shes My Roommate And We Have Many Things In Common  
GA: For Example  
AG: 8ORING!!!!!!!!  
AG: Ugh, you didn’t cheer me up 8 ALL.  
AG: Thanks for n8thing, KALIKA.  
GA: Im Sorry I Really Dont Know What To Say Other Than  
GA: Perhaps You Should Try Talking To The People Who Are Causing You Such Great Torment  
GA: I Know You Are Going To Say  
GA: Bluh Bluh I Dont See How That Could Possibly Help Kal You Are A Useless Flagellum  
GA: But It Really Cant Hurt  
AG: Flagellum?  
AG: Y8u’re not a flagellum! You’re a whole amoe8a at least.  
GA: Why Thank You Its An Honor To Be So Well Thought Of  
AG: And I GU8SS it can’t hurt to talk, but I’ll be screaming ins8de the whole time.  
AG: It’s not all sunshine and rain8ows for some of us, you know!  
AG: Your adv8ce never let me d8wn before, though.  
AG: Except that one time. With Travis.  
GA: I Still Maintain That That Was Not My Fault  
GA: You Misinterpreted Me  
AG: Whatever!!!!!!!!  
AG: I guess I’m going to t8lk to my roomm8 first.  
AG: Wish me l8ck, Kal.  
AG: Oh w8, you don’t need to!  
AG: I ALREADY HAVE 8LL THE L8CK!!!!!!!!  
\-- arachnidsGavel [AG] has ceased pestering gucciAristocrat [GA] --  
GA: You Are So Ridiculous

Serendipitously, Paula comes back just as you’re finished talking to Kalika. She has… a double armful of stuffed animals, mostly cats but there are some dragons and horses in there too, from what you can see. She promptly deposits them on her bed and begins to roll around in them, filling the room with the sound of shifting stuffed innards.

You are _really_ not sure you want to do this.

But you gird yourself anyway, standing up and going over to her. You stand over her bed with her arms crossed, and she rolls onto her back to smile up at you, the big stupid expression taking up her whole round little face. “Hi Vicky!”

“Uh, hey,” you say, sort of awkwardly shuffling from foot to foot. You are not good at talking to new people. Usually you end up threatening them. You don’t want to have to live with someone who thinks you are actually going to kill her; she might end up building a wall across half the room and then if you lose something over there you’re screwed. This is why you pretty much only ever talk to Kalika. She’s _used_ to you, and when you tell her “I’m going to gouge your eyes out with a fireplace poker” she knows you don’t _mean_ it. You realize that you have no idea what you are going to talk about, so, automatically, like a complete idiot, you latch on to the nearest thing. “What are those?” You immediately curse yourself even as you’re gesturing to her pile.

Her face _instantly_ lights up, even more than her dopey grin already had it. She grabs a purple-and-green striped kitten and thrusts it in your face; you hold it like it’s a kid you might drop. The fur is velvety soft in your hands. “These are my babies!” she announces as she wrestles herself and the pile into a sitting position, filling her lap with stuffed animals. “I love to play with them.”

“…you still play with stuffed toys?”

“Yeah!” She blinks wide-eyed at you. Her irises are dark green, her pupils big like she’s been smoking up. “You don’t? Oh, well, you can play with mine!” She snatches up a horse with a mane of rainbow yarn and wriggles the poor abused-looking thing up at you. Its soulful button eyes beg for the sweet release of the glue factory. “The pretty little horsey canters up to her best kitty friend and snuffles at her face.”

_why do these things happen to you_

__“…uhhhhhhhh. The, uh.” You cannot believe you are actually doing this. You’re going to mail Kal a letter bomb that spells out “FUCK YOU” when it explodes and covers her face in shredded stuffed animal innards. “The… brave and… magnificent and also very manipulative feline greets the, uh, the rainbow horse by… pawing it on the, uh, the foot. The hoof, I mean.”

“The horsey, whose _name_ is Princess Cuppie Cake, shakes paws with her friend and asks her how her day has been!”

“The cat’s name is, uh. The Marquis de Carabas, and she tells the princess that her day has been absolutely terrible, because… she failed at her hunt? And couldn’t bring anything home to feed her kittens?” You might be starting to get into this, a little. “And she is a really grumpy cat now. She asks the princess if she knows where she might find some easy prey.”

Paula raises her eyebrows. “Uh, the princess says – “

You make the stuffed cat leap onto Paula’s horse and bat it with its little paws, imagining the victorious wounds the Marquis is striking on her once-friend! Paula squeals and pulls the horse away from you, holding it protectively in her arms and stroking its mane. “Vicky, _no_! That’s not how you play!”

“What, do you want the Marquis to starve to death? Animals need to eat too, you know.”

“Friends don’t eat friends!” She snatches the cat toy from you and holds it against her bosom alongside the horse. You were just starting to like that cat. She was pretty hardcore. “You’re not allowed to play with my toys anymore,” Paula says decisively. “I’m already going to have to send poor Cuppie to horse therapy. You are _mean_.”

“Well,” you say. You should absolutely not be embarrassed that you offended this little freak. Absolutely _not_. “I’m, uh, I, I didn’t want to play with your stupid toys anyway! And there’s no such thing as a horse therapist!” You whirl away from her and return to your own side of the room , flumping down in your chair and pulling your knees up to your chest. Kalika isn’t even on Pesterchum anymore for you to lay all the blame on. Nobody is _there_ , and you even miss your terrible bitch of a mother. College _sucks_.

“I’m going out,” you mutter to nobody in particular, and find that Paula wouldn’t have heard you anyway because she’s put on a pair of headphones. You don’t even want to know what she’s listening to. Probably a Broadway musical or something. You grab your jacket and shrug it on as you stomp out of the dormitory, over the stained carpet and under the flickering fluorescents that will demarcate your home for the year.

The dorm’s mostly empty, save for a few others moving the last few pieces of their crap in now that the bustle of orientation is over, so you’re unaccosted as you descend the staircase, which is even more poorly-lit than your hall. You wish you lived in a building that had eight floors, so you could be on top _and_ on the eighth floor, but sadly there are only three and you are on the second. That’s okay. You _guess_. At least there isn’t a long walk.

Once you’re standing on the sidewalk outside your hall, you realize you have no idea where you actually want to go. You never thought it through besides “out” in your sudden flurry of irritation at your incomp – at your annoying roommate who won’t play the way _you_ want to. Oh well. There’s a Subway near the campus, probably opened to take advantage of poor, lazy students, so you head there, hoping to find some reasonable quiet. But once you’re past the door to the sandwich-smelling interior, the delicious scent is totally obliterated by the thing you least want to see. Terri Pyrope is sitting at one of the tables, her cane resting across her lap as she indulges herself in the most disgusting sandwich consumption you have ever had scorched permanently into your retinas. She’s sticking her tongue in the sub, ferreting out the good parts and pulling them out and letting them smear all over her face as she swallows them down, tomato and meat and little strips of lettuce slithering into her maw. Your stomach turns as you watch. There’s mustard and mayonnaise _all over her_.

And somehow with her nose jammed eight miles deep in the sandwich she realizes you’re there. She wheels in her seat like a bony periscope until she’s facing a foot to your left and gives a huge shit-eating smile to the empty air there. You can see all the food in her teeth, and you would be glad _she_ can’t see the horrified expression that has completely taken over your face if you actually cared whether or not she likes you.

“Serket!” she squawks in her ostrich voice. “Fancy seeing you here, _classmate_.”

“Pyrope. What are _you_ doing here?”

“It’s a restaurant. I’m eating a sandwich! See?” You barely have time to close your eyes before her mouth ratchets open so she can show you the disgusting wad of chewed-up salami and lettuce and probably half a dozen rats she inhaled into that bear trap.

“Ugh! What are you, like _eight_?”

Her cackle resonates throughout the restaurant. When you crack an eye open to make sure you are no longer in danger of being sucked into the yawning vortex of her gross smeary mouth, you see that people are starting to stare a little. “Nothing wrong with enjoying yourself at people’s expense now and then. Come on, sit. You’re in all my classes, let’s get to _know_ each other.” Her steel fingers wrap around your wrist.

_no no no no no no no no_

“Sure.”

_what the fuck_

She drags you over to the table she’s claimed with splatters of mustard and Pyrope-spit and somehow hooks her foot into another chair as she’s sitting down, nearly slicing your legs off at the shin when she tugs it over for you to sit. You pull your knees up to your chin and hunch up in the chair to avoid any other mishaps. You do not know what possessed you to agree to this. If you really wanted, you could flip her chair and run, or flip the table, or throw her through one of the windows, or any of eight thousand other things. It’s not hard to get the jump on a blind girl. But she’s looking at you (or at least facing you) with something like curiosity in her face, hands folded on her cane and chin resting on her wrists, her little motions rocking her chair back and forth, and you think you might really have caught a stomach bug because it’s still flopping around in there. Or maybe you swallowed a fish whole while you were sleepwalking the other night.

“So!” she says brightly, her eyebrows climbing up her forehead like millipedes ascending to heaven.

“What?” You reconfigure your own fascinated expression into a scowl, just in case anyone else is still watching. You don’t _actually_ care about the way her cheekbones look sharp enough to cut glass, and are _not_ wondering if they would draw blood on your fingertips.

“We should make proper introductions! Victoria Serket, right? I’m Terri.” She unfolds one of her spidery – not spidery, _not_ spidery, something else that’s spindly and wicked and fascinating, maybe a crab? – hands and holds it out to you. You take it and give it a firm shake. Her mouth splits into that piranha grin again.

“Nice to meet you,” you manage when the moment of _oh shit is she going to bite me_ passes. She looks satisfied, but doesn’t let go of your hand when she leans back into her seat. You have to pry her fingers off you while she cackles. “You are _fucked up_ , Pyrope.”

“Nothing wrong with that either,” she says impishly. Her shaken hand doesn’t go back with the other; she keeps it close to her, her fingers rubbing and sliding over each other, fingertips tapping and touching. “You can’t be that normal, though. Nobody is.” She leans in _way_ too close. Under the condiment smell, your brain is flooded with the scent of cherry chapstick. “Tell me all your tasty little secrets, Serket.”

Way too late, you jerk back. “Gah! What the _fuck_!” You take back _everything_ you thought before. She is not boring and milquetoast, she is some kind of horrific alien monster that has wriggled its tendrils into your dimension and is bent on sucking your essence out through a straw. This is absolutely the only explanation. “Would you quit that?! You have personal space issues!”

“Oh, sure, rag on the blind girl for not knowing when she’s too close.” She pouts. “I’m used to it. But you still haven’t told me anything about yourself, and here I am dumping all over you!”

“I… like to play games?” you say, fists clenching and unclenching on your legs. You don’t like the tickling feeling rushing up and down your spine. Why are you still here? “Like, on the computer.”

“Oooh, me too! I like to read, too. But only the really _interesting_ books. Like _Lolita_ and _The Metamorphosis_.” God, this girl is fucked up. That must be why your insides are in knots.

“My favorite book is… _Crime and Punishment_.” That’s only a half a lie. You do like _Crime and Punishment_. But your favorite book is _Sojourn_. Drizzt Do’Urden is your hero.

“ _Oooooh_. I _looooove_ that book.” Her shades glint ominously. Somehow. “Getting a real sneak peek into the mind of a depraved killer! And at the end, he gets what he deserves! Isn’t it _great_?”

You frown. This indignity cannot stand. “Actually, that’s not why I like it. I…” This is not a conversation for Subway. This is not a conversation for someone you want to throw into a deep river in a bag filled with rocks. “I like it because it shows what lengths a normal guy can go to when he’s really desperate, uh, in his head. Or with money. And it… shows the consequences of his actions, and how a normal guy deals with those too.”

She tilts her head owl-like to the side, her mouth twisting up. “I never thought of it that way. So you’re saying that normal people can commit crimes too? I’m not sure I buy that. You have to be a certain kind of really messed-up person to think of doing something like that!”

“We can have different interpretations,” you say sharply. “Nothing wrong with disagreement.”

“So you say, Serket.” She leans in again with a slightly less dangerous smile. “I _like_ you. I have work to do, but I’ll be hunting you down again soon. Don’t let your guard down.” Her sinister whisper degenerates into tinkling laughter. “Just kidding! I want to talk more, though! Maybe after class.”

“Yeah,” you say, belly still clenching. “Yeah, I’d like that too.” And to your surprise, you _would_. She is definitely on a level with you, even if you can’t see where she is from your position. She is, as Kalika would say, Fascinating In Myriad Ways. Definitely _not_ a stick in the mud. And then suddenly while you’re thinking, your body stands up for you and offers her your hand. Your brain half-reengages and remembers she’s blind, and instead of the logical response of _cut that shit out_ you reach down and pull her to her feet. She laughs in surprise and smiles near you, then wiggles her fingers.

“Bye, Serket,” she coos. She saunters off, tapping her cane in front of her, and your eyes are drawn inevitably downwards. As you stare at the back of her cutoff shorts, filled out by an ass way too nice and full and firm for someone so skinny, the clenching in your stomach makes sense, and you realize you are in deep shit.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Your little _problem_ just gets worse your whole first week. You keep running into her in the dining hall, in the bookstore, the library, the quad. Once you _literally_ run into her. She pretends she didn’t notice you there and laughs her cackly laugh, pinching you on the back of the thigh when she passes. This _coincides_ with a muscle spasm and all the books you’re carrying tumble out of your arms all over the floor, so you have to endure her help picking them up, her hands feeling all over the ground for them and brushing against your fingers and your wrists and _ugh_ you cannot take how _revolting_ she is. That loses water almost as soon as you think it, and then you feel sort of sick again, hollow and full all at once. She lets you go once everything is back in your arms (all your _books_ , you hastily think), and the churning of your stomach fades a little once she’s out of sight, but not much. You wonder how it’s possible to like someone and hate them at the same time; you don’t _want_ your emotions to be tied to her like some kind of ( _leash_ ) thing that ties somebody to another person, but you haven’t quite mastered perfect control over the roiling mess of your own insides yet. Maybe you should ask Kalika.

The rest of your time goes much the same way, tides of obsession washing in and out. Paula is still giving you the cold shoulder, so at least you don’t have to deal with her while you’re in your room; this is increasingly your only solace from the constant barrage of Pyrope clawing into your brain. In class, Terri is still answering every single question she has enough brain cells to comprehend, and answering them as perfectly as ever. However, you’ve decided you can’t let her keep it up, especially now that you’re… nodding acquaintances with a one-sided horrible compulsion. You resolve to outdo her in the eyes of your professors; it is absolutely not acceptable for her to be better than you in any way whatsoever. Not even when she suddenly plops herself down next to you when you’re reading under a tree in the quad and that tingling warmth starts up in you again.

“Pyrope, what the fuck?”

“What?”

“Why are you here?”

“Didn’t I say I wanted to talk to you some more? And you said you’d like that? I’m just trying to be a _good friend_.”

“I didn’t think you were _serious_. Since when are we friends?”

“Since I decided we were! Doesn’t matter if you don’t want to be. You’re so _antisocial_ , Serket.”

“I’m not antisocial! I just don’t like people. Especially not you.”

She leans in way too close again, the afternoon sunlight blocked out by the giant ginger blot of her head. The sun beaming past her hair makes it look like her head is on fire. “You’re an idiot. What are you reading?”

“The shit Renner assigned yesterday.” This is a hilariously blatant lie, since she can’t see that you’re actually reading the first book in your favorite schlocky fantasy series – not _real_ literature, like Drizzt’s books. Ooooh, Mr. Do’Urden… ooooh. “How did you even know I was here?”

“Ugh, I haven’t gotten around to that yet! I wouldn’t have expected _you_ to get a head start, either. You’ve already missed… what, ten classes?” She cackles merrily and drops her elbows, sprawling out over your outstretched legs, folding one arm behind her head. The movement pushes her stupid dragon t-shirt up a little, exposing a slice of flat stomach. Your palms itch.

“I just wanted to beat you to the punch this time. Looks like I won, too.” You give her a nudge with one hand.

“The only victory you’ll ever achieve!” Terri laughs and rolls back and forth on your legs. You have the briefest of moments to regain your circulation before she cuts it off again.

“ _Whatever_ , you obnoxious dick. You still didn’t say how you even found me. Did you ask somebody?”

“I followed my _nose_ , Serket!” She rests a fingertip on the end of her sharp-looking nose. “You smell like blueberry, chocolate, and _hideous lies_.”

“That is such bullshit.” You can’t keep the fondness out of your voice. God, she’s such an asshole. You cannot even deal with how much of an asshole she is.

“Bullshit it may be, but I’m still here.” Her eyebrows jerk up and down her forehead. Looks like somebody forgot to wind up the music box all the way. “You shall never know my true secrets of Serket-hunting.”

You stretch out your legs underneath her and ‘accidentally’ knee her in the side. “I don’t care about your secrets, Pyrope. If you’re not going to leave me alone, at least sit still so I don’t have to deal with you flopping around down there like a dying fish.”

Terri almost immediately gets up on her hands and knees again and crawls right up in your face, planting her hands on your book. “I want to know _your_ secrets, Serket! Victoria’s secrets!” _Fuck_. Your face immediately floods with pink. You _hate_ your _stupid name_.

“I swear if you make fun of me about that I’m going to smash your fucking head into this tree!”

“Did I find a _sensitive_ spot?” She somehow balances on one hand so she can jab you with the fingers of the other. The way she drags her tongue over her lips is amazingly disconcerting. “Are you _embarrassed_? _Victorrrrrria_?”

“Oh, fuck you!” You grab her by the shoulders and wrestle her off your lap onto the grass beside you. “Like _your_ name is any better! You sound like you’re stripping your way through college!”

That sets her off into another flurry of manic giggling. She writhes indulgently on the ground, forcing you to avert your eyes lest you actually catch on fire. “We could be a double act!” she guffaws. “But you’d have to be Vicki, with an I, so we match! You and me would make money hand over fist!”

“You’d fall off the stage and drag me with you, and we’d blow all our tips paying medical bills.” You shove her again, sending her rolling a few feet away before she reverses her course, her body the other half of a rubber band attached to your waist. She keeps laughing the whole way there and back, then thumps against you, legs outstretched next to yours and her head propped against the tree at almost a ninety-degree angle. Since the rest of her entire body is made up of angles smaller than that, you aren’t really worried. Not that you would be anyway. You lean casually back against the tree and watch her out of the corner of your eye. She really is good-looking. …if you like girls that resemble burning matches.

“So,” she says after a few minutes.

“What _now_?”

“I’m just trying to make conversation!”

“You suck at it!”

“ _You_ suck at it.”

“No, you.”

“No _you_.”

“Shut _up_ , Pyrope. You’re so – _gah_!” The quad’s sprinkler system flicks on; this happens at the same time every day, and the two of you were too wrapped up in each other - in _arguing with each other_ , dammit – to realize that everyone else had cleared off. You yelp and stuff your book underneath your shirt, scrambling away from the squirting water and dampening grass. “Shit! See you later, Pyrope, I’m out!” She calls out something in return, but you’re already gone. You’re not sure your brain can take a wet Pyrope t-shirt contest.

Your friendship doesn’t stop class from turning into an extended sparring match. You make sure not to miss a single one so you don’t get behind in the race to prove yourself better than her. If no one could answer any questions before, now not even the professors can get a word in for all your quarreling and trying to trip each other up. She wins most of the time at first, but you start to learn her tactics quick enough and the arguments become far more even. …not that they weren’t even in the first place, of course. You _are_ smarter than her. You’re lucky you never take notes, or your notebooks would be filled with little doodles of you gloating over her prostrate body. Eventually, after the two of you are tired of getting berated by your professors, she takes the desk next to you in all your classes (in a few cases, terrifying the current occupant away with her chainsaw mouth) so you can whisper and giggle like a couple of schoolgirls to your hearts’ content.

One day, Dr. Villanueva decides that your class is going to separate into groups and research famous upholders of democracy to present in several weeks. To avoid muss, he assigns the groups himself… and completely undermines himself by pairing you with Pyrope. When his high, mincing, excessively polite voice reads off “Serket and Pyrope, the two of you will have to be a group by yourselves, I’m afraid, since we don’t have the proper number of students,” you swear you have an aneurysm right there.

“That schmuck,” you hiss to her. “I don’t want to be on a team with you! You’re a _taskmistress_!”

“I’m so hurt,” she says cheerfully. Villanueva is still assigning people to groups, so, naturally, Pyrope shoves her desk right up against yours while making as much noise as possible. She sits cross-legged on top of it, facing you and your desk. Not to be outdone, you climb on top of yours and sit the same way, mimicing her leaning-in posture. It feels as if there’s no one else in the classroom, just you and her cloudy eyes that’ve found your own for once. Something burns inside you; it’s uncomfortable, and you blame it on your breakfast burrito. “Serket.”

“What?” You jerk back into reality with a grimace.

Terri reaches out and slaps you on the cheek with disconcerting accuracy. “ _Serket_ , he’s calling you, idiot.” You look up and find that everyone is staring at you, including Villanueva, who’s holding out a sheet of paper with a few handwritten lines on it. You slide off the desk and fetch it, trying to ignore your burning cheeks as you walk with your shoulders maybe a little too far back and your head a little too high. When you get back to Terri, you just growl into her ear without getting back up onto the desk. Her red-orange hair smells clean, like some kind of really nice shampoo and why are you thinking about this.

“Why didn’t you say something?” you say in a voice that doesn’t come out nearly as pissed off as you mean it to. “Now they all think I’m an idiot!”

“I did.” Her mouth spreads in a grin. “And you _are_ an idiot, Serket.”

“Oh, fuck you.” You put the paper down without looking at it and lean back against the occupied desk, crossing your arms over your chest and pretending that Terri isn’t behind you while you listen to Villanueva drone on about the wonders of a leader elected by the public. Terri’s not so easy to ignore, though. Her fingers tap on your shoulders, she tugs your hair, plays with the hem of your shirt, reaches around and gets your glasses all askew. The harder you ignore her, the more annoying she gets, but your iron willpower wins out in the end. She settles for plopping her sharp chin down on your shoulder and mocking the professor into your ear, which is actually pretty funny – her impression is dead-on, and the more ridiculous and high-pitched her mimicry gets the more you have to stifle your giggles. You turn your head towards her and are momentarily given pause by the warmth and nearness of her cheek.

“Quit it, Pyrope,” you murmur, just loud enough for her to hear.

“Why should I? You’re laughing.”

“Maybe I’m just laughing to get you to shut up.”

“Maybe you are. So if I shut up that would be letting you win.” The long fingers of one of her hands start to walk over your stomach; you halfheartedly try to slap her away, but somehow she is a master of evasion. “And if you’re _not_ faking it, maybe I like making you laugh. Either way I win.” She… likes making you laugh?

“Maybe you do like making me laugh. In that case, you need a _lot_ of practice.”

“Sounds like I’m pretty good at it already.”

“We’re back to whether or not I’m trying to get you to shut up.”

“If you were trying to get me to shut up, you wouldn’t be carrying on this conversation.”

You hope your uncontrollable grin doesn’t look as stupid as it feels. “Maybe I’m trying to get you to exhaust all your discussion options so you don’t have anything left to talk about.”

“Maybe you should. Then you wouldn’t be losing this argument so badly.”

“We’re having an argument?”

“You’re such a pissant, Serket.” She chuckles into your ear and leans her head on yours; you turn frontways again as you mentally chalk up another victory. Neither of you moves until Villanueva is done with his lecture, which is a good ten minutes of her pressed up against your back and her hand flattened out against your stomach. You figured out she gave approximately zero shits about your personal bubble about thirty seconds after meeting her, but this is closer than you’re used to – an arm around you and a skinny body spooned against you isn’t at all like her fingers around your wrist or her rolling around on your legs. Or maybe it is. Whenever you think you have her figured out she does some more crazy shit and you’re left reeling and aching in that special Terri way.

Villanueva dismisses you when all the assignemts are handed out and he realizes that people are starting to doze off under the constant barrage of his lecture. You get your things together and walk out of the classroom; somehow your arm got linked with Terri’s and she’s following your lead instead of using her cane, instead using it to hit you on the shins every now and then. You briefly consider throwing her down the stairs and ridding yourself of that horrible teal jacket she likes so much, but she starts to talk before you have the chance.

“Guess we should get started. It’s better to get it all over with quickly.”

“Uggggggggh. Do we _have_ to? Can’t we just do it the day before it’s due?”

She gives you an absolutely disgusted look with a smile tugging at her lips. “You’re one of _those_? I thought you were _smart_ , Serket. Ew.”

“Hey, I _am_ smart! I’m smarter than _you_! I just… procrastinate. Nothing wrong with that. And I totally read that last assignment before you, anyway.” You huff at her and ruffle her hair with your breath.

“Yes there _is_ something wrong with that, and the something wrong is that you are stupid and we’re going to do this my way.”

“What? No!”

“What _yes_. Shut _up_ , Serket. Don’t you ever stop talking?” She elbows you in the kidney, which is completely contrary to her mission since it makes you let out a loud gurgle. You retaliate, and after your elbow fight of five or so minutes is done you’re both flushed with laughter.

“No,” you inform her. “Especially not when people are _wrong_. People that are named Terri Pyrope.”

“I’m not wrong, you just can’t comprehend my vast intellect!”

“You are so full of shit!”

“I am full of _brains_! Now are we going to get started on this or not? I’m just going to drag you out to help me if you try and get out of it!”

“God _damn_ it, Pyrope. You always have to get your way, don’t you.”

“Yep.”

The library is surprisingly empty; all the other students in your class must have decided to _put the project off, like normal people who aren’t chained to a psycho bitch_. Terri claims a book cart while you read over the assignment. You got Harmodius and Aristogeiton – _awesome_. What’s not to like about a couple of conspiratorial badasses who murdered a tyrant? Nothing, that’s what. There are plenty of books on Greek law and history, so you decide that you’re going to check them all out. All of them. No books for anybody else. At least your asshole of a partner agrees with this course of action. There are only braille versions of some of them, but since you can see that’s not so much of a problem – you can just read to her. The prospect doesn’t sound as demeaning as it would have a couple of weeks ago, probably because you’re used to her stupid blind ass by now.

You claim a library desk, too, and set up your cart next to it. Just to make sure nobody gets any ideas in their head, the two of you write your names in blue and teal crayon (you’re not sure why Terri carries crayons with her, or why most of them have tooth marks on them, but at least it’s convenient) and tape the tags to your desk. You make her agree to only spend an hour looking at things on the _actual day the project was assigned_ , but you find yourself wishing you hadn’t. Poring over books quietly, reading to her in hushed tones, hunching over braille while _she_ reads to _you_ – it’s nice. The butterflies in your stomach have all been caught and eaten by the spiders that belong there instead, and your archenemy has become more or less the only friend you have at school – certainly the only one who’s anywhere close to your intellectual level. Still doesn’t mean she’s not a huge bitch, though.

At the hour mark, the timer you set on your phone goes off. You let out a heavy sigh and close the book you were reading from, and Terri leans back with a little frown on her (soft, kissable-looking) lips. She brightens up again quick enough.

“Good work,” she says, and you swear her smile is almost genuine.

“Yeah, uh, you too. Same time tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” She helps you load the books back into the cart and moves her nametag onto it so nobody makes off with your totally nonimportant study materials. “See you later, Serket.”

“Later, Pyrope.”

Poor planning leads to an awkward moment while you help her back down the stairs to the entrance, and then you have to swap laters again. Once that’s done, you’re free for the rest of the day, and you walk back to your dorm with a springy step. Things are actually looking up. You have a friend now – just a friend, no matter how great her ass is or how good she smells or how much you like her voice in your ear. You’re pretty sure she’s not into you like that. Not like you care.

You momentarily forget about Terri, thank god, when you go into your dorm room to find a strange guy sitting on your roommate’s bed. Who’s this douchebag? At least he’s dressed. He has lanky black hair, deeply tanned skin, enormous muscles, and looks about eight feet tall sitting cross-legged on the bed with impeccable posture. There are a pair of sunglasses that have seen better days tucked into the neck of his tank top. After a second of confused staring, you see that Paula is sitting behind him, wrangling his greasy hair into tiny little braids with the utmost care and tying each one with a different-colored bow. She has a look of intense concentration, her tongue poked out slightly past the corner of her mouth.

“Oh,” the strange guy says when he deigns to notice you. He disentangles himself from Paula’s death-braid-grip and stands up. Somehow his head _doesn’t_ touch the ceiling. He makes his way over to you, then waits for a moment while Paula catches up with his enormous stride; she only comes up to the middle of his chest, but he still rests an arm around her small shoulders and tugs her against him. “You must be Victoria.” He looks at you like you’re a flattened villager he’s scraped off his hobnailed boot, then gives you the most half-assed bow you’ve ever seen. “Paula… speaks of you frequently. I am Eric, and I am currently enrolled in the horse therapy program on a football scholarship at Bing Crosby Northeastern.” He puts out his free hand while Paula sticks her tongue out at you from the safety of his one-arm hug. You shake his hand, which completely engulfs yours, and he nods in satisfaction, making a couple of braids fall in front of his face.

“Uh… yeah. I’m Vicky.” You hope he can’t smell fear. “Nice to… meet you. Paula talks about you a lot, too.”

“Does she.”

“Yeah, uh. …what does she say about me?”

“Oh, her reviews were _quite_ positive at first. Then you slighted her.” His eyes narrow. “She wept on my shoulder the first time I came to visit.” You wince.

“Sorry,” you say hastily, then, apology to themost imminent danger completed, you turn to Paula and awkwardly take one of her hands. Veins bulge out on Eric’s neck. “I’m really, uh… really sorry I was a jerk? I think? I guess, I mean, is that the problem?”

“Yeah,” Paula huffs, her button nose wrinkled up.

“Then I’m sorry.” The furrow of Paula’s brow suggests to you that this is not actually the right answer. “…we could try playing again sometime if you want?” You show too many teeth to her when you smile, but you’d like to keep your head unpopped for as long as possible, and that seems like an iffy prospect with Eric looming overhead.

Paula looks uncertainly up at her friend. His calloused thumb rubs at her shoulder, and his scowl flips into a soft smile as you watch. He lifts her into his arms and rests her against his chest, as far as you can tell just so he can rest his chin on her head. Her eyes close and she smiles too. Suddenly, you are terribly, terribly jealous.

“I guess,” your roommate allows. “If you promise not to be a jerk again.”

You roll your eyes and draw an X over your heart. “Yeah, whatever.” Paula slides down from Eric’s arms and holds hers out to you. You stare in horror. Hell no, you are not doing this. Hell. No.

So she wraps her arms around you in a big hug of her own accord. “You’re not so bad, Vicky,” she says happily as she bruises your ribs, your arms pinned to your sides. All the response you can muster is a gurgle.

Eric clears his throat loudly. “I’m glad that that business is all sorted out. It would simply not do if the two of you did not get along, being roommates.” He gives you a significant look.

“Hey!” Paula says brightly, bouncing up on her toes and looking back at Eric. “Maybe you could knit her a hat, too! A pretty one, with spiders on it. You like spiders, don’t you, Vicky?”

“…you knit that hat?” you say, bewildered. His fingers _do_ look about right when compared with the stretched holes in the knitting…

“Yes. I thought it would be appropriate for Paula to have a memento of me when we both left for college. She has… refused to take it off since I gave it to her.” He wrinkles his nose.

“You always have those sunglasses I got you, too, and those are even _older_! They’re just _sunglasses_ , Eric. I can get you some new ones.”

“These are very sentimental!” he says stiffly, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at her. You snicker into your hand, then clear your throat in embarrassment when both of them look at you.

“No, that’s fine. I don’t need a hat,” you say. “Uh, you can go back to braid time now, sorry for interrupting.” You excuse yourself to your desk, and Eric and Paula return to sitting on her bed – positions swapped this time, the look of painful concentration on his face now as he takes the hat off her head and combs his fingers through her slightly-curly hat-hair, then begins to braid it as well. Your blood sugar is spiking dangerously, so you log on to Pesterchum to see who’s there. Once again, Kalika is the only one logged in. _Ugh_. At least you haven’t talked to her in a while, so your bullshit reservoirs are ready for a full load.

\-- arachnidsGavel [AG] began pestering gucciAristocrat [GA] --

AG: Hey!!!!!!!!  
GA: Oh Hello  
GA: Long Time No See  
GA: How Are You  
AG: You know, I th8nk I’m pr8y good, all in all.  
AG: I just made up with my roomm8 and her weirdo 8oyfriend.  
AG: And you remem8er that girl I said I h8????????  
GA: Yes  
GA: Yes I Do  
GA: How Could I Forget You Went Off On Quite The Tirade About Her  
AG: She’s n8 so 8ad after all. In f8ct I kind of like her!  
GA: See  
GA: I Told You To Talk To Them  
AG: Yeah, yeah!!!!!!!!  
AG: I gu8ss you were right.  
AG: THIS TIME.  
AG: :::;D  
AG: H8w are YOU doing?  
GA: Oh You Must Be In A Very Good Mood If You Are Actually Asking Me That  
GA: Im Impressed That Youve Got Everything All Sorted Out  
GA: !  
AG: ……..I c8n’t tell if you’re m8king fun of me.  
GA: I Would Never Do Such A Thing  
GA: Anyway  
GA: Im Sure Youll Be Overjoyed To Know  
GA: I Am  
GA: Er  
GA: That Is To Say I Have  
GA: My Roommate And I Are  
AG: Oh my g8d!!!!!!!!  
AG: KALIKA HAS A G8RLFRIEND!!!!!!!!  
AG: Have you two DONE 8 YET????????  
GA: No We Have Not  
GA: “Done It”  
GA: As You So Eloquently Phrase The Matter  
GA: We Attended A Film Together Followed By A Very Nice Dinner  
GA: I Kissed Her Goodnight At The Door To Our Room And We Retired To Our Separate Beds  
AG: S8 you think you’re go8ng to have sex by the time you’re in the n8rsing home?  
GA: Oh Shut Up  
AG: S8nds like you need some S8XY SEX TIPS.  
GA: Absolutely Not  
GA: Under No Circumstances Will I Ever Take Romantic Advice From You  
AG: Geez!!!!!!!! Fine!  
AG: Hey, m8ybe YOU can help ME, now that you h8ve a girlfriend.  
GA: Me Helping You  
GA: This Is Unheard Of Surely  
GA: Proceed  
AG: You sure 8re o8noxious now!!!!!!!!  
AG: This is a really dum8 question, so don’t laugh 8 me.  
GA: I Am Deactivating And Disconnecting My Laughter Capacitor As We Speak  
AG: How did you feel wh8n you figured out you liked her?  
GA: Uh  
GA: Hmm  
GA: Thats Actually A Good Question Let Me Think About How I Would Describe The Feeling  
GA: Sort Of  
GA: Tingly  
GA: Or Perhaps Warm  
GA: Like A Pleasantly Burning Hearth Inside My Chest  
GA: I Wanted To Be Near Her Frequently  
GA: Which Was Quite Conenient Since We Already Roomed Together  
GA: Does That Help At All  
AG: ……..  
AG: ::::( S8rt of. Thanks.  
GA: What  
GA: Whats Wrong  
AG: A8solutely nothing!  
AG: Everything’s j8st fine!  
GA: Oh  
GA: Well  
GA: Never Mind Then  
GA: I Hope You Feel Better Soon Victoria  
AG: Yeah yeah. Wh8ever.  
AG: Say hi to your g8rlfriend for me.  
GA: I Will

\-- gucciAristocrat [GA] has ceased pestering arachnidsGavel [AG] --

You lower your head until you’re typing a line of _yuhyujujhuhujhujhu_ into the chat window. You are _surrounded_ by people who know exactly what they’re doing. You need a cutlass or something so you can just cut off all their heads; then you won’t _have_ to figure anything out because you can just relax all day on your throne of dead loser bodies. Ugh. You look over your shoulder; Eric and Paula seem to have given up on their endeavor, possibly because Paula has fallen asleep cradled against Eric’s chest, most of her hair in clumsy braids and the rest of it half-covering her face. The floor-rattling bass you thought was an asshole frat boy outside must be what passes for his quiet humming. He’s so distracted he doesn’t even notice when you climb into your own bed and bury your head underneath the pillow, hoping that a nap might make you feel less conflicted. It never does. Still, you let Eric’s hum lull you to sleep, and soon you’re swept up into darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

Your sleep, as ever, is filled with unsettling dreams. Before and after each more-coherent segment, you’re plagued with scraps of visions – green and white lightning, a huge, heaving white shape covered in tiny shapes like rainbow sprinkles, gothic towers looming above a ravine. A sky made of maps, with islands and water stretching out underneath. Your arm and your eye gone, and agonizing pain in your chest. Red figures prominently – shoes, eyes, wounds. Not all the wounds, though. You can’t explain what _that_ means, just that it makes perfect sense within the dream.

Thankfully, tonight Victoria Theatre is interrupted by an actual dream. You should be less surprised than you are when it turns out to be about Terri, and even less surprised than _that_ when your subconscious takes the chance to make out with itself – or at least the part of it representing her. You were never too sure on all that dream analysis stuff. You spend the rest of the night safe inside your own head, no Eric or Paula or Kalika or wheedly-voiced teachers, just you and all the wonderfully filthy things you do to a perfectly, utterly willing Terri.

It’s _terrible_. She just doesn’t look _right_ standing in a moonlit pool dressed in a gauzy white robe, or sighing wistfully by an open window and staring out into the night, or howling for blood astride a dragon… wait, no, that last one is good. She doesn’t spit in your face when she laughs or give you a wedgie when you’re walking together. There’s the smell of cherries and shampoo, sure, and she’s pale and bony – it’s still _her_ , but… all her soul is missing. But that certainly doesn’t mean you don’t make dream-Terri squeal like a guinea pig in a blender.

You wake up feeling achingly unfulfilled and kind of lonely, about a half an hour before your first class at eleven. Eric is gone, and Paula is snoozing safe in her bed, the sheets tucked up to her chin, all adrift in a pile of stuffed animals. Her hair is still braided. _Your_ sheets are mostly kicked off the mattress, and _your_ hair resembles a family of raccoons set loose in a bale of hay. As the seconds tick by, you feel more and more like ass, so when you finally lever yourself out of bed you opt to just wash your face and brush your hair and teeth. You swear your poster of Nic Cage is mocking you, with his silky locks and his piercing eyes. That smooth bastard.

You really don’t want to go to class, but you need to see Terri more than usual to get your dose of cackling madwoman. You shuffle through your classroom building’s lobby, where people are sleeping on the couches as usual, up the stairs, through the hall, and into the classroom. When you’re tired, every step weighs eight times as much. You take your desk and deploy your textbook; Terri isn’t there yet, but you arrived earlier than you usually do and she might still be eating or something.

Class starts, and Ms. Mendelowitz starts cheerfully expounding about the infrastructure of New England. Her lectures are never boring – she gets as excited as Villanueva does, except she doesn’t have a voice that makes you want to shove a sword through her gut – but when your head is sort of dully throbbing and the book on your desk looks like an inviting pillow, it’s a problem. And Terri still isn’t there. In fact, she doesn’t show up all class. You start to worry a little. She’s never missed a class, as far as you know – she might not have been there on a few days nearer the beginning of the semester when you weren’t either, but you don’t think that’s very likely. Maybe she came down with a cold or something. You’re certain she’ll be in your next class, anyway.

And then she isn’t. You had been nodding off throughout Mendelowitz’ lecture and the fifteen minutes in between classes, but now you are alert with nervous adrenaline. Worry is a strange and _unfamiliar_ feeling for you. You never worry about Kalika. She can take care of her damn self. …not that Terri _can’t_ , but this is _different_. Okay, you might have worried about Travis for a minute or two when he was sprawled in the street with his blood all over that car’s hood, but he got better quick! …sort of. Ugh. What you are trying to get at is that you are worried about Terri because you _really, really care about her_.

Wow, that feels good to admit! Only now you kind of want to crawl under your bed and never come out. You absolutely cannot under any circumstances ever let her know you don’t think she is terrible. You’re pretty sure she won’t care anyway. Not a girl like her, so smart and good-looking who blatantly, loudly doesn’t care what _anyone_ thinks of her, most especially not you. You don’t want to think about her laughing in your face when you tell her you care. You are _Victoria Serket_ and _nobody_ can have this effect on you! You’re too intimidating and awesome and brilliant, and this never, ever, ever happens to you, and… it happened anyway. You have to hide this strange new feeling.

 Now that that’s taken care of, you can safely go back to worrying about her well-being.

This plan is not very well thought out.

Class ends without you hearing a word the professor said. You hustle your bustle out to the quad and look for her, just in case. No Terri. You don’t have any classes for the rest of the day, so you can’t look for her there, either. (Most of your classes are at the beginning of the week. You made sure to pick ones that met less than the other freshman classes, and on Mondays and Tuesdays, so you could spend the last half of the week partying. You have _ways_ to get your classes.) It isn’t like it _matters_ , anyway. You’re pretty sure her grades so far are so good that she could skip a month of class and still come out on top. Maybe she just decided that she was going to take the day off. …okay, that is _vanishingly unlikely_. Maybe she got tired of you and switched her classes, or is out with… a boyfriend, or something. You immediately regret the thought as your stomach twists itself up into stone knots. You really cannot deal with these kinds of feelings. Your heart is shimmying up your spinal cord and spurting care-blood all over your grey matter.

You drag your phone out of your pocket and give it a rueful look. She pickpocketed you the other day and put her number in, and then of course you had to put yours in hers so you’d be even. If you call her, that would be an admission that you give a shit. She would know you made the effort to take out your phone and open it and dial her number in. (She doesn’t need to know that you have her on speed dial.) But what if she _needs_ you?

You hold down her speed dial key and grimace.

“Terri? Terri, are you oka… are you fucking… are you dead?”

“Yeah, I’m just sitting around here in the hearse waiting for you to call me. I need somebody to dig me a grave.” Her voice is quiet and wobbly. You want to _be_ there with her, to put your hand on her shoulder, maybe hug her just a little bit so she doesn’t have to raise her voice to be heard. Just a little.

“ _Fuck you_. Why weren’t you in class?”

“I don’t feel so great. Had some bad dreams last night and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

You can’t think of anything to say. ‘I know that feeling’ is trite as hell. ‘I’ll hit you in the head with a frying pan so you can rest well’ is coming on a little too strong. You decide to just change the subject. “…where are you?”

 “At my place.”

“Your dorm?”

“No, I have an apartment off campus.”

“Do you… need anything?”

“Flowers and chocolate.”

“ _Pyrope_. Really?”

“Oh, fine. You want to get a little more work done on the project?” Ugh, the _project_. She sounds like she’s already lying on the fainting couch and she’s thinking about _work_? “Bring some of the books over, I’ll text you where to go.”

“...okay. Don’t you dare fucking die while I’m on my way, got it, Pyrope?”

“I can’t hear you. I put my head in a grocery bag.”

You hang up on her. She texts you her address immediately after, while you’re walking to the library and trying not to look like you’re in a rush. It kind of comes out like you’re staggering drunkenly down the footpath; you keep speeding up, then remembering yourself and slowing down to a stroll again.

You’re not supposed to take some of your reference books out of the library, so those are the ones you pick out. As you stuff them under your purple and orange CDU hoodie you wonder how your life got to the point that you have to get your kicks by _borrowing library books without permission_. You slip outside the scanners in front of one of the doors in the back, and on your way nobody asks you why you’re apparently gravid with flat, rectangular babies. It’s a college town. This probably isn’t the strangest thing they’ve seen this week alone. Terri’s apartment building is just a short walk away. You have plenty of time to look at it as you trudge your tired, book-laden ass there. It’s pretty nice, all tall and imposing and brick-faced, with trimmed greenery in front. There’s a little fountain too, and...

…she’s waiting for you there, leaning on her cane as she teeters on the fountain’s edge. She’s dressed in the loudest, ugliest dragon-patterned pajama pants and loose shirt you’ve ever seen. She is heartbreakingly beautiful. She doesn’t look too good, though – her skin is even paler than usual, and under her shades her eyes are ringed with blue-black darkness. You step up to her, trying not to remember how dream-Terri’s skin felt under your hands, and disgorge your literary bounty all over the ground in front of her. She laughs her Woody Woodpecker laugh and claps her hands together.

“Vicky,” she says, addressing the crap you just dumped everywhere. At least her voice sounds less whispery in person. “It is a _pleasure_ to see you.” She winks outrageously.

“You know that word ‘incorrigible’?” You pick up the books and _almost_ shove them into her arms, but opt to hold them awkwardly against your chest instead.

“I am very well corrugated, I’d have you know. Come on, let’s get inside.” She turns around and taps her way into the building, holding the door open for you until you brush your hand on hers. “The elevator’s here, unless you want to walk up four flights of stairs with a blind asshole.”

“You’d pass out halfway there. You look like a zombie, Pyrope.”

“No wonder you’re not afraid of being alone with me. I wouldn’t get any nutrition from eating your brain.” She slaps her hand on the call button, and the elevator slides open immediately. You both step inside. It’s carpeted in there, with hand rails on the sides; you lean on one of them, and Terri leans on you with a huffing sigh.

“What did you have nightmares about?” you ask, as gently as you can. Elevators were _made_ for awkward conversation.

Your efforts are apparently for naught, since her face crumples up like a marshmallow under a blowtorch. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she says, pulling away from you.

“Well, fuck, forgive me for trying to _help_.”

“You never helped anybody in your life, Serket.”

“That’s not true! I help people all the time!”

She smirks. “Into manholes, maybe.”

“You’re lucky I came at all. I should have left you standing there all day. I’m probably going to catch Pyrope plague, now, too.” Before you can do something unwise like pull her up against you and infect yourself thoroughly with said plague, the elevator dings and slides open. Her apartment is the last one on the hall, so you walk in silence until she pushes the door open and gestures you in.

Inside, it’s… more or less what you expected. Everything is exactly in its proper place, there’s no crap on the floor, all the furniture is arranged so shinbumps will be minimal. Basically the complete opposite of any space you occupy. The front door opens onto the living room, with a comfortable-looking couch in the middle facing a television and awful teal carpeting all over the floor. A kitchenette is off to the side.

“…why do you have a TV?”

“Visitors. That I never have.” She snorts. “Sometimes I listen to the news if I want to throw things. Let’s sit and get to work.” She sprawls herself out on the couch and you sit next to her, putting the books in between you.

“I can’t believe you want to _work_. You missed class all day.”

“I emailed ahead and did all the assignments already. Don’t you even start with me, Serket.”

“This isn’t even due until midterms!”

“I like to get a head start!” She slams her palms down on the books. “Why are these here, anyway? You can’t read to me if you’re all the way over there.”

“What? Yes I can.” You move the books anyway, shifting them to your other side. Almost as soon as they’re moved she scoots up to you, sprawling her legs over your lap. She turns her face towards yours like an eager child.

“Come on, read to me, Vicky.”

“You have absolutely no idea how much I hate you right at this moment. No. Fucking. Idea.”

“I don’t know _what_ kind of person hates cuddles. You’re a sick, sad woman.”

“Do you want me to read or not?” That shuts her up. You pick up one of the books and open it to the bookmarked page. She doesn’t have her laptop ready to take notes, but that shouldn’t matter; both of you are pretty sharp, and you’ll certainly be able to remember any pertinent bits for later. So you read, occasionally interrupted by some inane snarky comment you answer with a _shut up_ or a _you’re the one who started this, you know, Pyrope_. She snuggles in closer and closer against you until her cheek is on your shoulder and her arm is around your waist. You pretend that everything is normal and hope she can’t hear your pounding heartbeat.

Her comments get fewer and fewer, so naturally you assume she listened to you and shut the soul-swallowing ravine from which her voice emanates. Then you look down, and it feels like a fist has wrapped around your heart and squeezed until the poor, neglected organ burst like a rotten orange, throwing its malevolent spores all over your body. She’s _asleep_ , cheek still on your shoulder, her long eyelashes resting on her pale cheeks. Her lips are curved into the very tiniest smile. Something makes a noise, but when you look up in surprise it stops. Then you realize that it was coming from your throat, a little whimper of… something you won’t name.

Your hands itch again. You put the book down, careful not to let the pages rustle and wake her up. Just so they won’t get broken if she moves, you pull her shades off without touching her face and put them on the book. Watching her sleep without her glasses doesn’t really help the desperate need bubbling up inside you; in fact it makes it worse. You know how fucking _creepy_ it is to watch her sleep like this and to want so badly to touch her. You can imagine Kalika’s quiet look of horror if you were to tell her, can almost see her excusing herself to climb out the bathroom window and get away from the crazy spider lady.

So naturally, you put your hands on Terri’s sharp shoulders to feel them press your palms. Her skin is warm under her shirt. She doesn’t stir at all, so you slide your hand as slowly and gently as you can up the back of her neck into her feather-soft hair. That makes her move – she murmurs something in her sleep and nestles closer against you, her arm tightening on your waist. You swallow a sudden lump in your throat.

This goes on for what feels like about eight hours, but is probably closer to eight minutes. The only movement you dare make now is to slowly trace your fingers up and down the bony bumps of her spine, feeling each one out through her shirt, counting them again and again. She has the same number as you. Like that’s a surprise. Now and then she makes another sound, but nothing you can pick out and nothing that sounds like she’s about to wake up and throw you out the window. You just stroke her back and hold her head, feeling her warm body and her slow, even breaths tickling your skin. Everything about this is comforting. So comforting that you feel your eyes getting heavy – worry is tiring, especially since it’s so strange, and you can’t even remember the last time you felt this safe - and soon enough you lay your cheek on top of her match-head and join her in her nap.

 

There are no dreams this time.

 

You wake to her hands on your shoulders, shaking you firmly. “Vicky,” she’s mumbling, her voice thick with doziness. “We must have fallen asleep, it’s like eight PM.”

“Uhhhhhhhh…?” You slide your fingers under your glasses to rub at your eyes, then crack your eyelids open. She hasn’t put her shades on yet, and you get that gut-punch feeling again. “Uhh. Fuck. We did. I’m – “ You yawn loudly, and it sets her off with giggles. Once you’ve wrestled your mouth shut again you stick your tongue out at her, then remember she can’t see it and blow a raspberry. “I’m going to blame this one on you. You got _way_ quiet, and I was lulled into a false sense of security without Chatty Cathy.”

“Blame all you like,” she says, all contentment, and cuddles back up to you. Without thinking, you drop your arms around her. She doesn’t say anything, but her smile grows almost imperceptibly. You feel weird that you notice these things now. “That nap fixed me right up. Even if my pillow needed some more fluffing.” She smiles and gives you a headbutt. There are lines on her cheek from your shirt.

“My blanket was pretty crappy too, but you don’t see _me_ complaining.”

“I can’t see anything!” She looks offended, then dissolves to giggling once more. “…wait, where are my…” Her hand comes to her face.

“I, uh – I took them off,” you say. You pretend that you suddenly have itches to scratch on your face so you can hide your blush. “You were going to break them. I don’t want broken glass on me!”

She scoots up so she’s staring blindly into your face again. “You took them off, huh? So you were watching me sleep? Are you some kind of _weirdo_ , Serket?” Her face splits almost in half, so huge is her grin.

With her so close, all you can smell is cherry and all you can see is foggy blue eyes and red hair and a wall of straight white teeth and _so_ much smooth soft pale skin. You say “yeah” almost perfunctorily, your brain already somewhere else. What does it _matter_ what she thinks of you? She’s so soft, so sweet, so warm, so sharp and cackling and scalpel-wicked. You can’t take it anymore. You cup her cheeks, thumbs stroking her cheekbones. The only noise she can make is _ah_ before your lips press against hers.

A second or two after you kiss her your face hasn’t been roto-rootered off your skull, so you figure you’re doing pretty okay so far. And then she _melts_ against you, that’s the only way you can explain it. It’s like holding a rubber Terri in your lap. She opens her mouth into the kiss and flickers her tongue against your lips. Your body still knows how to kiss even if your brain is currently dripping down your spine, and you keep doing so like you’ll die if you stop, both your mouths mashing together, tongues brushing and teeth clicking, lipstick and chapstick mingling irreparably. It’s about the furthest from a perfect kiss you could get, and it’s still utterly, inconceivably perfect.

When neither of you can breathe anymore and you separate, panting for air, the flush all over her cheeks makes you so desperate for another kiss you can’t think for a moment. She licks her lips once, twice, three times, then swallows. She takes a deep breath before she speaks.

“ _Finally_.”

“What?” is about all you can manage.

Her lips curl into yet another grin, blue smeared all over them. “I was starting to think you didn’t _like_ me! Do you think I just flop all over people I don’t care about? …well, I do, but.” She grazes her mouth along your jawline. “I’ve been trying to get you to kiss me for _ages_.” Her breath whuffs out in a happy sigh that tickles the hair on the back of your neck.

“…what, seriously?” You cannot believe how _dumb_ you are. You could have had this already! You could have had _more_ by now, and somehow you missed everything she was trying to tell you! What the hell? “Why didn’t you _say_ something? Maybe I just can’t pick up on all the weird fucking Pyrope cues you’re putting out!” This stuff only happens in badly-written romance novels! You should know, being a fan of _excellently_ -written fantasy romance.

“My tonsils are telling me you can’t be as dumb as you say you are!” She covers your lips in little pecking kisses so that before you know it you’re giggling and trying to swat her away like an elementary school kid playing tetherball with the girl she likes. “Nyah!”

Of course, you have to fuck up the moment by pulling her down into another for-realsies kiss, one arm around her waist. She mmms into you and presses you up against the back of the couch, straddling your legs. With most of the first-kiss urgency gone, you’re free to explore to your heart’s content. Her mouth doesn’t seem as scary when you’re running your tongue along the underside of hers and making her tremble in your arms. You trace her back again, up and down, feeling her spine arch into your hand, and when you have her right where you want her, hips snuggled in and her thoroughly distracted with showing you all the things she can do with her tongue, you dart down and grab a handful of her ass. It is even _better_ than you thought it would be, plush and firm and completely unfair, like a pair of oranges glued to a toothpick. She breaks the kiss with laughing and wags her butt back against your hand, grabbing your other and slapping it on there as well. You smirk as you knead your fingers.

“You like that?” you say in your best porn star voice.

Terri looks at you like you just crawled up out of the storm drain covered in rat shit. “Seriously?”

“Fuck you! I was trying to get into the moment!”

“You’re grabbing my ass! That _is_ the moment! There’s no – “ She waves her hands above her head and gyrates her torso. “Oooh baby, come fix my cable!”

You knock your forehead on hers and bite her bottom lip to smother your laugh. “Shut _up_. Don’t you ever stop laughing?”

Her lips mush yours and she pours giggles into your mouth, her hands raking through your terribly messy hair. “Nope.”

“Yeah, well. You’re lucky I like it.” You lick the corner of her lips. “You’re _fucking_ lucky I like _you_. Nobody else would put up with your crap, Pyrope.”

“Mmm. What about _your_ crap? I’m sure nobody else wants to deal with you either, you flighty broad!”

“I don’t have any crap!” You smack her on the ass, and the yelp-flush-gasp-giggle that happens all at once is _immensely_ satisfying. She flops down against you and tucks her head under your chin, still emitting a way too lengthy series of titters.

“We can share my crap, then. I brought enough for the whole class.” The two of you lay like that for a while; you even move one of your hands out of heaven so you can stroke her hair and run it through your fingers. You never knew holding someone could feel so good.

“…Vicky?” she murmurs after a while, breaking the companionable silence.

“Yeah?”

“What do you look like?”

You pause and wrinkle your nose. What _do_ you look like? You look like Victoria. “Uh, what do you want to know?”

“I dunno.” She runs her hands up your sides, fingertips tracing along the outsides of your breasts, then moving over your shoulders, along your arms, feeling in between each finger of your hands. “What color is your hair?”

“Black.”

She huhs and presses a kiss to your neck. “How about your skin?”

“Same.”

“Mmm. What about your eyes?”

“Blue.” You ruffle your hand through her hair and bite her on the ear. “You sure are nosy.”

“I am _curious_! There’s a difference.” She giggles. “You’re wearing lipstick, I can taste it! What color is it?”

“That’s blue too. I’m also wearing blue eyeshadow and black mascara. If you lick my eyes I’ll pull your tongue out!” You realize you’ve put the suggestion into her head and close your eyes just in case. Sure enough, a moment later you feel her fingertips on your eyelids. She rests them there for a moment, then, with care tangibly thrumming through her, she lays a kiss on each eye.

“I’m glad you like me,” she murmurs as she moves her lips to your forehead. The hollow of her throat is right there, so you lick it. From there, the natural progression, or so your hungry fingers tell you, is to slide your hands up her baggy shirt. You can feel each rib through her skin; you wonder what it would be like to lick them.

“Now who’s being a moment-ruiner? That was a _totally_ corny line.” You pause with your lips on her throat, and your cheeks heat before you even continue. “…I’m glad you like me, too.” Your fingertips bump her bra straps, so before she has a chance to do anything about it you undo her bra and pull it off under her shirt. It flops to the floor, a forlorn breast lamprey separated from its meal.

“Roaming hands,” she clucks, then puts her hands over yours through her shirt and guides them up and around until they’re over her breasts. You wriggle out of her grip and cup her breasts consideringly. They’re ever so slightly under a handful, nestling wonderfully in your palms, and her nipples are velvety-soft with what you hope is desire. You run your blue thumbnails over the puffy softness, which earns you a loud mewling gasp into your hair. “Vicky,” she groans, holding your wrists under her shirt. “Do you… do you wanna go to bed?”

“We just napped,” you growl against her translucent-pale skin. “Why would I want to… oh… _oh_.” The train pulls into Serket Station. “ _Really_?” Shit, you sound like Peewee Herman. “I mean, for real? You want to…” You can’t say it. “…uh… do it?”

She leans back and gives you a smile that can only be described as _doting_. Her throat is now covered in blue kiss marks, smudgy from all the lipstick you left on her mouth. You feel pretty good. “Yeah,” she says. “Wanna fight about it? Or do you wanna _take me to bed_?”

“Can’t we do both?” You stand up and sweep her into your arms, heading for what you presume is the bedroom door through process of elimination.

“And you were surprised I like you. Dumbass.” She kisses your neck and kicks her legs, giggling.

Her bedroom is cozy, taken mostly up by a nice big bed of which you approve wholeheartedly. She has red and teal sheets; you swear you can still see the colors burned into your eyelids when you look away. The bed is made, with a few books with papers tucked inside stacked on her nightstand. There’s some other incidental furniture you don’t care about, because honestly, giggling horny girl-of-your-literal-dreams in your arms. You know where your priorities are for once in your life.

You toss her down onto the bed and leap on after her. This works better in novels than it does in real life, because you end up landing right on top of her and it takes a minute for the two of you to remember which arms and legs belong to whom. Of course she thinks it’s absolutely hilarious, like she does with most everything, and squirms around like a starfish under you so you have to try to get her to stay still _and_ figure out whose heel is charley-horsing you. At least you _think_ she’s just flailing around to piss you off, until she smacks you in the face with her shirt.

“You’re terrible at this,” she informs you as you throw the offending garment onto the floor. You growl and kiss her hard, covering her little body with yours. She doesn’t seem to mind in the least, getting your bra off with similar alacrity as she teases you into brain-fogged lust with the tip of her tongue on the roof of your mouth. You were always pretty proud of your tits, but when her hands find them you are suddenly more glad for their existence than you have ever been for anything in your life. She mimics your earlier motion, her nails just as short as yours, then squeezes, kneads, tweaks at your nipples, finds sensitive spots you didn’t even know were _there_. You return the favor as best as you can – you’re a quick study, of course, and soon every undignified noise you make is matched by one just as loud from her.

You _like_ her noises, and you want more. You relinquish her breasts – oh, that pathetic whimper is not one of the noises you like. You kiss her quickly. “Shut up,” you murmur against her lips. “Be patient.”

“I don’t _want_ to be patient!” She kicks her legs everywhere before she gets them wrapped around your waist, and then she arches her hips against yours. “You need to have less clothes on!”

“Well, so do _you_! Uggggggggh, you are _so obnoxious_ and I can’t believe I’m _doing_ this with your dumb ass. I’m going to look like I took a bath in fists, with all your stupid bony elbows and knees poking me. You are a _centipede_.” You say all this with the most ridiculously smitten smile on your face; Terri kisses your nose, her face scribbled all over with warm tenderness so full-hearted even _you_ can see it.

“You should talk less, Serket. Maybe you could do something better with your mouth.” She kisses your throat. “…here, let me.” She pushes you upright and pulls your shirt off, tossing it along with hers on the floor, then undoes your jeans and works them off your legs with your help. “Hold on,” she says when she feels you reaching for your panties. “Lay down again?”

“Uh, okay.” You lay down, watching her curiously. She slips up against you and lays her hands on your waist, then starts to work her palms and fingertips all over you. The way she’s touching you makes goosebumps pop up on your skin within moments; it only gets worse when she adds in her lips. You swallow, jelly-kneed and glad you’re laying down. “…what the fuck are you doing, Pyrope?” you breathe.

“Exploring,” she says against you.

“Why don’t _I_ get to – ooh!” Her lips encircle your nipple and suck for a moment before she kisses a wet trail to the other, lapping at it. “Oh, hell, mmm. Why don’t I get to explore?”

“Because you can _see_ , idiot.” Her tongue traces your collarbone until she replaces it with her fingers and feels your shoulders; her mouth moves on, tauntingly avoiding yours so she can lap at your cheeks. “I want to know all about your ears and your ankles and your bellybutton.”

“How long are you going to keep me lying like this?!”

“Until I get bored.”

“Fuck you!”

“Shut up, be patient.”

Turns out you can’t say no to Terri, which is no surprise, really. By the time she’s swirled her tongue around your last little toe, thinking is a long-lost dream, your last coherent thought that isn’t _god god please fuck me fuck I need it fuck I need **you**_ washed away in tides of tongue and fingers. She has, essentially, given you a tongue bath; she even rolled you over so she could slurp all over your other half too. Now she’s leaning on her elbows above you and grinning, spit dripping down her chin. You gurgle at her, having forgotten what you were going to say before it got out of your mouth.

Thank _god_ , she takes pity on you without you having to reinvent speech. Your panties are gone – she pulled them off with her teeth ages ago – and you’re soaking a hopeless stain through the sheets and into the mattress; she kisses and strokes her way back down your body until her head is nestled in between your thighs. She spreads you open with that _fucking_ tongue and tastes the last bit of you she hasn’t anointed with every single taste bud; your hands clutch the sheets. Her tongue presses in, stretching you, spreading and delving until you swear you can hear her jaw creak while the tip of that infernal muscle teases you higher and higher. And then she leaves you empty with a sloppy-wet slurp you swear they can hear all the way on campus. You come _this_ close to reaching down and yanking her back against you, but she still has you in mind. Her lips wrap around your clit, and then there’s her _tongue_ again, licking and flickering and tasting like you have suddenly become an incredible delicacy. You beg her right out loud, moaning her name, twisting your hips on the bed until she has to hold you down to keep her mouth up against your soaked mound.

You really don’t have to beg for long, and you don’t really know why you did in the first place – she gives you everything you could possibly want and more, coaxing you right up to the edge and then letting you come slowly, infuriatingly down until you’re thrashing for want of her. And then, finally, she lets you tip over that precipice, and you’re _sobbing_ as you come, real tears dripping down your cheeks, her name on your lips. She coaxes you through all the way until you’re done, feeling like a tiny puddle on the sheets, satisfied to your very bones.

You get your words back under you after a moment. “Wow.” …not as much as you thought.

She slithers up to kiss you on the nose, leaving a wet spot before she licks her lips and chin clean. “Tastes like you liked it.”

“Oh, you know. All in a day’s work for the amazing Victoria Serket. ...come on, it was _incredible_ , you dumbass!” You flick her on the nose, then smile, still drunk with pleasure. “Your turn. Get up here.” You pull her up to you by her hips, giggling like a smitten nymph. Could there be a better way to spend an evening?

 

A while later (much, _much_ later, with both of you sore and satisfied) in the wee hours of the morning, you sit at Terri’s kitchen table eating cereal and watching her stand in the pantry, trying to decide what to eat, running her fingers over the cans, boxes, and bags. Little does she know that you unalphabetized everything in there while she was in the bathroom earlier. It’s an effort not to start laughing when she ponders whether she should eat the black olives, the raw spaghetti, or the pickled mushrooms. Eventually she changes gears and settles on a can of gravy, and feels around for the can opener before dumping the gloopy brown mess out into a bowl. She carries her mistaken bounty over to you with a spoon jammed in it, then sits down in your lap, forcing you to rearrange your own food around her when she nestles up to your chest.

She takes a big bite of gravy and smacks her lips, swallowing it down without a care in the world. Goddammit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jfc the chapter length pile doesn't stop from getting taller does it
> 
> now we all know what i REALLY wanted to write


	4. Chapter 4

When you were making your plans for college, you figured you would be skipping a lot of class. Class is _boring boring boring_ , and you’ll use just about any excuse to get out of it. You have many well-used weapons in your arsenal of hookey: you sniffled that morning, your grandma died (you have lots of grandmas), your nose is bleeding, you’re a little cold. You are _such_ a good liar that you don’t even need a signed note - thank god, you’d rather have actually gone to school than deal with your black widow of a mother. You just turn on the big watery eyes and cough a couple of times and you’re _golden_. Whatever bullshit you could spout to your teachers, they’d buy it like it was 80 percent off.

There is apparently one _very_ important thing you left off the list of hookey possibilities, though. Currently you are skipping class (for the second week in a row) because you are cuffed to a blind girl’s bedposts, blindfolded while she alternates between slamming a cherry-red strapon into you and smacking your ass with her open palm. If you had known, this would have been underlined, highlighted, and circled, possibly with little spiders drawn next to it for extra emphasis. Every thrust erases your thoughts and washes over the anxiety in your gut with burning pleasure, longer each time until it doesn’t fade before the next. Your toes are curling inside the red cowboy boots she neglected to take off your feet. Even as the bliss starts to stretch its tingling fingers up your spine – wait, no, that’s her other hand, come up from your hip to trace your back and rest on your shoulder – even as you start to come, though, doubts slide down to meet the sparks in your belly. They don’t have names; they’re just there, turning your impending orgasm into something that makes your heart clench. It is still _definitely_ impending, though, more and more with every thrust and spank and gut-deep moan from behind you. She twists her hips _just_ right, it feels so fucking good, her nails dig into your skin and her hot breath washes over the back of your neck and –

“Tort reform,” you slur, while your voice still works. She stops immediately, but you can hear her let out a frustrated growl. It’s all you can do to keep from toppling over the edge as she pulls out of you with the utmost care. There’s a moment of empty, gaping discomfort while she gets all the crap off both of you, strapon and harness and blindfold and cuffs, and then she’s carefully checking you over with her hands and _that_ will just not do. You slap her away as she’s brushing her fingertips over a bite mark from earlier in the day. “Fuck!” You don’t know _why_ you’re so angry, why you don’t want her to touch you or be near you or breathe on you. It’s not like you haven’t… been together before. That’s what you’ve spent these two weeks _doing_ – getting to know Terri, mostly with your lips, fingers, and tongue. Sometimes you talk. Mostly, you fuck. And now, suddenly, all at once, you don’t want any more. You want to crawl into a dark space and hide from her light.

“What? What happened, Vicky?” Her voice is solicitously tender, and it makes you sick. Your gorge rises. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Fuck you!” you spit, gathering sheets over your naked chest. _Naked_. Fuck. With her glowing handprints on your ass and mouth-stains all over you and your lips puffy and spread. What the fuck were you thinking? “Don’t touch me!”

“What the hell?” Terri’s face twists into a scowl. There’s hurt in her hazed-over blue eyes. “I thought you wanted to do this!”

“Well I don’t anymore!” You can’t get out of bed fast enough. You grab your bra from the lamp, panties from the floor, shirt and pants from the nightstand, and you’re dressed before she even rolls out behind you. “I don’t know, alright? I fucking… I didn’t know what I wanted!” Lies lies lies lies lies lies lies lies. You _wanted_ her to fuck all your troubles away with her freight-train hips, you wanted her to mark you for everyone to see. You just weren’t prepared, for her eagerness or skill or how _easy_ it was to just let her take care of it all and lay there under her hands without a care in the world. “Just leave me alone!” You shove her away again from where her arms were trying to slip around your waist. She topples onto the floor.

You look back for a second as you leave and see her sprawled on her ass, tears running down her still-flushed cheeks. It hurts to look away. You obviously have no idea what the fuck you’re doing with her, and you don’t want to know what she thinks of you now. You slam her front door behind you and run down the staircase into the cold afternoon air, your _own_ arms wrapped around you in a hug that doesn’t warm at all. As you walk back to campus through the afternoon city streets, you scream “fuck!” into the chilly autumn air over and over like you’re expecting an answer, but you only get a few strange looks from passing students.

At least Paula isn’t there when you get back to your room. She hardly ever skips class; you’re pretty sure she’s a dumbass and can’t afford to without flunking out. Her _diligence_ gives you plenty of time to yourself, which you make use of as you hop onto your own bed and slide your pants down. Your brain is still spinning with Terri’s smell and taste and the feel of her inside you, and when you push your hand into your panties you only last about eight seconds. But that doesn’t matter. You come when you’re damn well good and ready, you think as you imagine going back to her and falling over her with apologies and letting her take you back to bed and punish you for your transgressions _no bad Victoria_. _Fuck_. You don’t even bother to get yourself presentable again, and just flop over onto your side and let conflicted misery ebb out all over your nice clean sheets.

You’re still lying there in a funk a few hours later when Paula gets back. There’s practically a black stormcloud roiling above your head and dribbling droplets of _god I miss her what the fuck is wrong with me_ on your head. Your pants are still unzipped, exposing underwear that couldn’t be rescued by Mr. Clean himself, and she lets out a scandalized “oh!” that you just _know_ comes from fingertips pressed to her lips. You swear you can smell her blush, or maybe that’s just Terri rubbing off on you… which you are _not_ supposed to be thinking about, damn it all. You crack your eyes open just enough to watch Paula fidget in circles around the room and mince over piles of floor-crap on your side trying to get to you. She grabs one of your sheets and tug it up over your hips, making sure not to even brush her fingertips against your frayed jeans. You try not to snort. What a prude. She goes to her desk and takes out some of her textbooks to start studying; spying on her stops being interesting almost immediately. Somehow, though, you don’t really care. You don’t want to do anything at all – get up, eat, go to class, anything. You don’t really even want to lie there like a snake cut in half, but that has the most appeal because you don’t have to move. So you just lay there and watch somebody who isn’t doing anything that you can even see. Except occasionally she scratches her ass or her ear. Not that that makes it any better.

You must doze off at some point (what a surprise, your life is so exciting), because you’re pretty sure there are no chess piece people in your dorm room. Even your usual brain-wilting nightmares don’t hold any of their typical terror for you now; they seem as pedestrian as something you experience every night should, and when you escape their gauzy grip and wake up you’re right where you were when you fell asleep, complete with sheet perched on your lower body. Paula is still there, or maybe there again, depending. She’s still studying, and taking breaks now and then to giggle at something you can’t see on her screen and type rapidly. You figure she’s talking to Eric. Ugh. You roll over so you don’t have to watch her be so _happy_.

 The earth turns, the sun burns, the grass grows, and you don’t move a fucking inch. At some point you’re pretty sure it became another day, maybe while you were asleep, but you’re still not hungry. Not hungry, not sleepy, not – not lonely, you tell yourself desperately. Not wanting to tender Terri an _apology_ , that’s for sure. After all, it was _her_ fault that you stormed out, her fault that you felt so good, so taken care of and _lo_ –

Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope. Not going there. Not going anywhere _near_ there. You’d rather lay in this spot for eight million years before admitting – before _having_ any kind of feelings for that flighty fucking broad. She’s probably off sprawling across someone else’s lap now, anyway, the slut.  She never wanted you as anything more than a warm hole. …there’s something wet on your face. You drag the sheet across your eyes with a loud, hiccuping snuffle. Fuck. Maybe you’re getting sick, because that’s clearly the only explanation for why your throat is so tight and why your eyes are stinging with tears. You bury your face in the sheet and curl up.

Of course, you can’t even get a minute of peace with your asshole roommate there. It’s not eight seconds before you sense someone standing behind you and roll over again. Paula’s there, wringing her hands, looking down at you with her mouth all twisted up.

“Are you okay?” she asks, then leans down with her brows furrowed. “…are you _crying_?”

“No! Fuck off! Just... go away!”

She leans back with a shocked grimace. “ _Wow_ , rude. I thought we were friends now, Vicky! You’ve been laying here for like three days! I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” Her lips turn down, closing and completing her hurt look.

You shrink up a little in your bed. Alright, there wasn’t _really_ any need to lash out at her like that, but you just want to be left alone to shrivel up and die. Is that too much to ask for? Apparently, because she sits down next to you, her weight pushing the mattress down a little. She’s still frowning.

“I’m _fine_ ,” you mumble. “I think I have a virus or something.”

“Is that why you and Terri Pyrope haven’t been in class for two whole weeks?”

 _What_. “How do you know about _that_?” Your melancholy is washed away in the face of a torrent of angry energy, your eyes widening, and you sit up to glower at her. “You’re not in any of our classes!”

“People are talking.” Paula crosses her arms and gives you a stern look of the kind you were previously sure she was incapable of. “And I know Terri anyway. We went to high school together and we still keep in touch with forums and stuff.” She drums her fingers on her arm. If she had glasses, she would probably be looking over them at you. You aren’t going to give in _this_ easy, though.

“Well, that doesn’t matter! It’s none of your business if I don’t go to class, and I don’t care if people talk! I’ll just... go back to class when I’m good and ready. So leave me alone.” The thought of returning to class and seeing Terri makes your veins fill with ice.

Paula reaches for your shoulder but you smack her hand away. She holds her reddened wrist to her lips and frowns again. “You haven’t checked your email, either. Ms. Querido knows I’m your roommate, and she told me she’s sent you a bunch of mails that you haven’t answered. She said you need to go see her. So, um, I guess it is my business.” She pauses. “Not that it’s not my business anyway! I mean, we’re supposed to look out for each other, right?”

“Fuck!” is your eloquent response. You want to hug your knees to your chest, but that would make you look weak, so you just slam your fist into your pillow. “Ugh! I _guess_! I don’t know, I’ve never _had_ a roommate before! And... shit, what does Querido _want_? ...did Terri say anything about me?” That last bit comes out of your mouth sort of all by itself. It seems to hang in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don’t.

Paula tips her hand up to cover her mouth, but you see her smile before it vanishes beneath tan skin. “Maybe,” she says slyly. “What’s it to you?”

“What’s it - what’s it to _me_? Come on, you just said roommates help each other out!” You reach out to shove her, and she catches your hands rather than smacking them away.

“I’m teasing!” She lets you go, and you pull your hands back into your lap. Paula is almost as touchy as Terri. Ugh. You _do_ feel better than you have, at least. “Uh, Ms. Querido just said she wanted to talk to you. She didn’t give me any details other than that, but she did that... eyebrow thing.” She demonstrates, furrowing her eyebrows tightly together. It looks like caterpillars mating, but at least the effect is markedly less disturbing than when Terri does... anything at all with her eyebrows. You try to imagine the motion on Querido’s face, and you _already_ want to crawl under your bed for eternity. Paula looks away a bit and runs her hands up and down her arms, the mirth gone. “Terri is really upset with you. She wouldn’t tell me exactly what happened.” Her eyes flick to yours, expectant.

“Uhhhhhhhh...” You go through the possible answers in your head. _She was fucking my brains out and I didn’t like it_. No, that’s not true. _She was fucking my brains out and I didn’t like how much I liked it_. Too honest. _I flipped out on her_. _She flipped out on me. We flipped out._

 “We were fucking and I didn’t like how I flipped out,” you blurt.

You don’t hear Paula’s response because you’re willing the fugitive words back down your throat with all your might. No matter how hard you try, you don’t get anywhere; you only succeed in making yourself feel even more guilt-sick. “What?” you manage after a minute or two. “I didn’t hear you, I was trying to die.”

“I said, no wonder she’s so mad! I knew you two were close, but, uh, not _that_ close.” Her nervous expression magically transmutes into a sly grin, and she wiggles her eyebrows again. “You should definitely apologize to her! I bet she’d like th - “

“ _No_ , okay? I don’t, I don’t want to talk to her, I don’t want to see her, I don’t... you don’t know what’s going on, okay, Leijon? You’re not a part of this.” While you’re rearranging yourself to bury your face in your knees, she shifts as well, pressing the soles of her feet together and resting her hands on her shins.

“Tell me?” she says.

“I don’t know what’s going on either,” you mumble. You close your eyes so you can pretend she can’t see you either. You don’t want anyone to see you like this, so weak and vulnerable, opened up without your even knowing it by the razor blade angles of some callous bitch. Jesus, you’re way too close to this. You can’t let Paula know. You _have_ to abscond.

You hear her rocking back and forth on the bed. “Well,” she says after a moment. “How do you feel right now?”

“Are we really doing this psychoanalysis crap?”

“We sure are, since you won’t tell me what’s going on!”

You snag your pillow from behind you and chuck it at her, lifting your head to glare. “I fucking changed my mind! I’ll deal with it myself!” You hop off the bed, leaving a divot shaped like your prone body, and straighten out your clothes as best you can. You still look like you rolled out of a reactor meltdown. “I’m going to go see Querido,” you announce once you’re upright again. “You can do whatever you want, it’s not like _I_ care.” Paula makes a leap for your feet, but you elude her and escape out the door.

On your way to the law building, you congratulate yourself on your skill at escaping uncomfortable situations. All along, the secret was just to get up and leave! It would have saved you a lot of trouble to know that earlier on; a bunch of arguments with Kalika would have been avoided. Oh well, at least now you know. Thank god you won’t have to bother with Terri anymore. If she comes to your door, in tears or arms wide or with flowers or... something, you can just... walk away. Yeah. That won’t be any problem at all.

Terri is pushed out of your mind like Sisyphus’ boulder, you stride down the main path on campus again - much the same route you walked before, but whatever, it’s not like you actually give a shit about stupid parallels or anything. The law building is squat and happy in the middle of everything, a baby that’s just been fed and burped and is waiting to soil its nice new diaper. Querido’s office is on the third floor, and as you climb the stairs - you’re _way_ too badass to take the elevator! - you find yourself getting less and less confident. She’s going to skin you alive and upholster her office with your hide. She’s going to make an ashtray out of your skull. You are _. So. Fucked._

You finally find yourself standing in front of the door to her office, frosted glass labeled “Dr. B. Querido” in severe black letters. You reach for the handle, but before you can even touch it, your academic advisor’s low, tobacco-dripping voice slithers out from underneath the door and wraps itself around your legs. “Come,” she says. And really, what else are you going to do?


	5. Chapter 5

The first time you met with Querido you left feeling like you’d just barely managed to drag yourself out of the bowels of the earth, but now you’re going _in_ with your feet sweating in your Converse and your socks in a woolen death grip around your curling toes.      

That time, though, she wasn’t waiting for you like _this_. She’s sitting on the edge of her desk, miles-long bare legs crossed at the knee, coils of cigarette smoke unwinding into the fogbank near the ceiling. She taps the stiletto heel nearest the desk against it at the same rhythm she taps the stem of her cigarette holder against her shiny black lips. She’s drumming her nails on a barely-covered knee, and she looks at you with contempt as naked as her calves. Or a burrowing rodent or something. Whichever metaphor won’t get you expelled.

“Sit,” she says before you have a chance to do anything but gape. The door creaks shut behind you; you’re so nervous the latch-click sounds like the snick of a pocket knife. You scurry forwards, almost tripping on the carpet, and plant your ass in the chair she’s oh so kindly pulled out for you. It’s directly in front of her, and this places the tip of one of her heels unsettlingly close to your throat. You keep your eyes from investigating upwards. She looks down at you and arches one eyebrow, then lets her mouthful of smoke out in a sigh. “I’m very disappointed in you, Ms. Serket.”

“I can - “ you start. She holds up her palm, and you shut up damn quick just in case that sound really was a knife. “Shut up.” Her voice is as conversational as if she’s talking to you over coffee. She takes a long drag on her cigarette while you’re sitting there almost pissing yourself. “Let’s make it very clear that for the duration of this meeting, you are going to restrain your legendarily sharp tongue until I permit you to speak. That is, assuming that you actually want to hear what I have to tell you about your academic future.” She looks at you from underneath her dark lashes.

Keeping your mouth shut suddenly becomes the order of the day.

"You have scarce managed to attend even _one_ class in more than half a month, much less the intense course load you chose at the beginning of the semester. Now," she says as her thighs slip sinuously together in her slide from the desk, "you are a freshman, so I - and your professors, I'm sure - are willing to give you a certain amount of... leeway." She paces in a slow circle around your chair, one nail dragging along the back, so close to the back of your neck that the hair there stands on end. "However." There's a pause while she takes another drag on her cigarette. You try to stop your teeth from chattering too loudly. "I am in a unique position to watch your precipitous fall, being that I am also Ms. Pyrope's academic advisor."

Oh fuck. You forgot _all about that_.

Querido's hands wrap around the back of your chair and tip it forward, just enough so that you have to clutch the seat to avoid falling out. "You are a very lucky girl," she tells you. "If I didn't know better, I would suspect that you are intentionally making a bid for my sympathy to prevent your imminent demise." Her sentence is punctuated by her letting go of the chair, and you swallow your _oof_ like a hand grenade as the legs slam down. "You see - " there's another pause for effect or for making you want to cry - "I have some personal experience with destructive relationships. Again, I am in a unique position - " she's leaning over you, if you look up you can just see her looming, smoke rolling from her lips - "to give you advice."

Her words hang above your head before she continues. "Your scholarly and emotional difficulties are connected, yes?" You're too fucking terrified to answer. You're not even sure if you're _expected_ to answer. She waits for a good few seconds before adding, "You're permitted to answer questions."

"Yes," you squeak. Querido still isn't saying anything, so you look up to make sure she isn't opening a portal to hell so she'll have somewhere to dispose of your body. What you find is much worse. She's trying not to laugh - you can see it at the corners of her mouth, in the way her eyes are crinkled. You duck your head, your cheeks burning in shame.

Thank god it doesn't take her long to recover. "Then I suggest you, mm, patch things up with Ms. Pyrope. If you don't resume attending your lectures or at least submitting your classwork, you will almost certainly fail. Your grades have slipped far enough that you will only recover with quite a lot of effort. Tell me, Ms. Serket. Do you _want_ to fail?" She's standing in front of you now. When did that happen?

"No," you blurt. "Hell no!  I didn't pay all that money and, and - fucking _attend_ high school so I could flunk out! It's just, her, her and me, we're -"

"Sh." Querido puts a finger to your lips. You can feel the heat in your face spreading lower. "I don't care, Ms. Serket. This is _your_ problem. I could strike you from the records right now and this little disturbance in my daily routine would be nothing more than an unpleasant memory. You say you don't want to fail. So don't fail. You might look into tutoring with your oh-so-dear friend." You get the distinct impression that she enjoys your squirm of discomfort. "She's a very talented student. Gifted, even." You don't say anything, you don't say anything, you absolutely do not under any circumstances say a single word. "Well." She tilts her head back, showing you her throat as she swallows a breath of smoke, then sighs the remainder out. "You're free, if you'd like to leave. I'm sure I can come up with something else, if you'd rather stay - ah."

Your leaden legs almost trip you on your way out, and you think you see a smile on her lips as you glance back.

\---

You slump down in a quiet-looking spot in the hallway, catching your breath and wondering why you feel so fucking turned on. Was it the hot older woman, or the humiliation? You decide you don't actually want to know. You are suddenly very, very tired of just about everything.

Your thigh-based reminiscence is broken before long by a familiar grating voice. It's Paula, of course, the person you least want to deal with right now. Second least. Maybe.

"Did you talk to her?" Paula says, sounding way too excited for the situation. She's carrying a shoebox with some suspicious stains on the bottom.

"Talk to who," you ask dully. Your head thumps the wall as you tilt back to look her in the face. As usual, she looks happy just to be alive.

She rolls her eyes. "Ms. Querido, obviously! Or did you lie and run off somewhere else? I didn't think you were _that_ much of a dirty rat."

You can't be bothered to yell, though your tone is sharp enough to make Paula narrow her eyes. "I went to see her, alright? It didn't go so fucking great. Querido's a major pain in the ass."

Paula puts her box down and sits next to you, her back against the wall. She's close - friendly close, not fuck-you-and-make-you-cry close. It's kind of nice; you lean towards her without thinking about it. Because if you _did_ think about it, you would be getting as far away from this asshole as you could. She scratches her nose. "Wanna talk about it?"

"No." You drop your forehead onto your knees and say into them, "she told me to apologize to Terri."

"That's what I told you too."

"I _know_ , okay? And the more people tell me to do it, the less I wanna do it! She said if I don't, I'm gonna _fail_! There has to be another way, there has to, I don't have to see her again." You're babbling to yourself now, your eyes squeezed shut as you clutch your legs. "I don't want to see her again." You want to lay on the carpet and never move again, but that would probably be embarrassing, and somehow Paula's arm got around your shoulders and she's keeping you from tipping over.

"Come on," she says, all friendly concern, and you hate it less than you should. "What's the worst thing she can do to you?"

"The worst thing she can do to me is that she can, fucking, I don't know, have you _met_ her? She could kill me if she wanted!"

Paula rolls her eyes so hard you can hear them tumbling across the floor. "You are _so_ dramatic. If she was going to kill you, there are plenty of other times she could have done it!"

Your middle finger is elevated by a mysterious force. Paula snickers and ruffles your hair up; it's already a mess, since you didn't bother to comb it before you made your Great Escape earlier, and her hand gets caught in a particularly tenacious tangle so then you have to spend a few minutes freeing yourself.

By then you've stopped wanting to die due to sheer irritation, which gives you the freedom to ask her, "what the fuck is in that box?" Said box is dribbling on the carpet now, leaving a red stain that looks like it'd need the kind of professional that doesn't show up in the yellow pages.

"Oh, this?" She picks up the soggy shoebox and offers it to you. Hell no you are not touching that, and you wrinkle your nose until she gets the point. "Fine," she says with a huff, and puts the box in her lap to open the top. You only catch a peek before you recoil in horror at the smell. "Wow, it's not _that_ big a deal." She closes the lid again just in time to save your gag reflex. "I went hunting with my mom this weekend and we decided to bring back some squirrels and things for the biology department!

"That," you tell her, "is the grossest fucking thing I have ever heard in my life."

"Don't you have a tarantula at home? _You're_ gross." Paula shoves your shoulder, so you shove her back, and then there's a Moment. You are having way too many moments lately, especially ones where there's all this heartfelt fucking smiling.

And then the bottom of the box crumbles and gushes unmentionable fluids all over Paula's pants. You hear her groan "oh no, not _again_ " as you clap your hands over your eyes.

\---

You stay and help Paula clean up out of the goodness of your hahaha you can't even finish the sentence. You help her because she says she'll put dead mice in your bed if you don't. She offers you what might be either a half-melted candy bar or some kind of organ when you're done, but either way you're not hungry, so you head back to your dorm to wash your hands with lye. Then you have time for some peace and quiet and thinking. Great. Thinking. Your _favorite_ thing.

There's sort of one option that everything and everyone is pointing to, like some kind of giant fate dick getting a boner at your misfortune. You can't even pretend to be Lady Luck anymore. That'd be an egregious lie of the kind only Terri could get away with, because she'd just be so _smug_ and _insufferable_ and _right_ that nobody could bear to call her out on it, and god damn everything you were doing so well with not thinking about her.

Not really, but it helps to act like you're a champ anyway.

You turn the facts over in your head. One, you can't go to class because she's there. Two, you're flunking because you haven't gone to class. Three, your roommate is going to chuck you out the window out of some bizarre misplaced sense of responsibility. Four, Querido is going to personally murder you if you don't shape up. Five, you miss Terri, you really, really miss her, and it fucking sucks, six you owe her an apology, seven you want to kiss her again, eight you think you left one of your textbooks at her apartment.

Fuck literally everything, you decide, and roll over to take a nap before you do anything drastic. Of course you can't fall asleep, so you end up lying there with your eyes closed while you think about this stupid intractable girl who you don't love, you don't love her, damn it.        

You try to stop crying before Paula gets back, but instead you just manage to fall asleep by accident. Shows you what you get for trying, you guess. Your dreams bother again - wintergreen blood dripping down a grey face, red eyes that burn into your heart, but this time you wake into warmth and contentment rather than a sweaty tangle of sheets and a yen for Febreze. There's something soft on your chest; your bleary, sleepy brain thinks it's Terri, so you run your fingers through her hair, stroking her ears, caressing the back of her neck.

"Hair petting is fine," says Paula, "but if you touch my butt I'll send you to the infirmary."

"Oh my fucking god." You try to wrestle her off you; she clings like a sock fresh out of the dryer. "Get off me, come on, don't be a dick!"

"You were crying again!"

"So _what_!"

"So what is maybe I don't _like_ it when you cry!"

"You are so totally full of shit!"

Paula is stronger than ten of you, and she pins you down by your shoulders, glaring right in your face. "Did you come back here and lay in bed like a jerk instead of doing what you're supposed to? _Again_?"

You avert your eyes.

"I know that's a yes!"

"Okay, fine, yes!"

"Vicky..." Her grip loosens. "You looked like you needed a hug, all right? I just - " Her perky face is overtaken by a dark cloud. "I don't know what to do to help."

Your next words tear out all by themselves. "Looks like I'm just disappointing everyone lately!" You can feel the heat rising inside you, your eyes stinging with anger, mostly at yourself, at everyone else, at all the ways you fucked up and keep fucking up, your fingers curl into fists against the bedsheets -

Paula slaps you across the face hard enough to make your head ring.

Everything drains away in an instant as you focus on the sudden aching pain in your jaw. Your eyes are sort of crossed, and when they focus straight again you see Paula's expression, something you can't put into words. She gathers you into a hug, and you stay like that for a while, your face buried in her shoulder as you slowly stop shaking and take deep, steadying breaths of her shirt.

"I'll go see Terri," you say into her.

\---

Terri's door has a peephole. You're not sure why. You peek into it and can't see anything, but you spend a good ten or so minutes trying, because that means you don't have to knock. Maybe it'll work if you sort of turn your head and squint -

"Is there someone there?" Terri calls from inside. "The doorbell works just fine, I promise."

You open your mouth and vomit snakes everywhere. Not _really_ , but that's what you want to do, because then it would get the squirming serpentine nest out of your belly. You can't answer, not even when you hear her footsteps and the shuffle-sweep of her cane. Your heart turns over, and over, and over, and then she opens the door, and she's as beautiful as you remember, her bottom lip in between her teeth, a textbook cradled under one arm.

"Hello?" she says. You can't say anything. You can't even swallow, or breathe, or move to touch her, or run sobbing into the fall afternoon. Her mouth twists into its familiar curvy question shape; your heart flips again. You don't know what to do, or say, or feel. The bruises from her lips are still burning on your neck.

Terri leans out past the doorframe and calls "hello?" again. When no answer is forthcoming, she extends her cane and feels over the ground.

Her cane knocks against your shoe, and she jumps, almost dropping it. "Who - ?"

You can't even manage a croak. She reaches out her arm and touches your hand, moves up to your shoulder, your neck, your face. Her thumb brushes over your lips, and she's still and silent for a horrible eternity.

"Leave," she says quietly.

You almost do. You are so very close to turning around and walking until you can't walk anymore, because if you don't have her approval you have nothing, less than nothing. Paula will hate you, you'll flunk out, you'll die miserable and alone because you won't even be able to drag yourself out of bed without the promise of her arms around you.

But god damn it, she is _right here_ , and her fingertips brush your jawline as she takes her hand away.

"I can't." Her touch seems to have broken the spell that kept you quiet, but your feet are still heavy clay.

Her head snaps up, her eyes not quite meeting yours, but you don't need eye contact to feel her scorn. "You _can't_? Well! That is just another thing you can't do, then!"

"I mean I can't leave because I'm, I'm not here for _you_ , I - "

She shoves the textbook into your arms. You almost drop it, but manage to catch it by the cover; it's _On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society_ , for Dr. Reyes' criminal law course. Your copy is still in your dorm, it's the one with dirty socks all over it.

"Wait, I still have this," you say to the closing door. You rip your foot from its moorings and shove it into the gap between door and frame; Terri slams the heavy slab of wood on your toes. The entire apartment block can hear your swearing.

"I don't care! All books are yours for the rest of time, forever, goodbye!" She leans her slight weight on the door.

"I need you," you blurt.

Terri pulls the door open just a bit, far enough for you to see her wary face in the gap. "You need me," she repeats.

"For tutoring," you amend hastily, just in case she gets the wrong idea.

" _Tutoring_?"

"I - " You grimace. "I'm not going to explain it all out here with you about to crush my fucking foot, okay? Just..." You sort of trail off, glad she can't see the helpless look on your face.

She stares through you, then pulls the door all the way open. "Come in," she says, almost too quiet for you to hear.

Her apartment is just the way you remember it, a place for everything and everything in its place. You catch a peek into her bedroom; everything is cleaned up, of course, and yet you still feel a distant pang. She takes you to the kitchen table - you can barely sit there, overwhelmed by memories, so you sort of perch on the chair with your toes hanging over the edge and your knees bumping your shoulders.

There's another lengthy silence. Her hands are steepled in front of her face, hiding it from you. She looks beaten, tired, aching, and you are convinced with a wild passion that it isn't your fault. It _couldn't_ be your fault, it's been _forever_ , she hasn't said anything to you and you bet she forgot you until you showed up at her door!

"So," she says in sepulchral tones, "why shouldn't I just let you fail?"

Oops.

She continues before you can get a word in, and you don't have the balls to interrupt. "Our advisor sent me a message about this, which is the _only_ reason you are sitting in my apartment right now. I hoped it was a scam, or a mistake, but here you are." She lifts her head just enough to give you a brief look at her cloudy eyes and furrowed brow. You don't detect even a single tear. She's been taking lessons from Querido. Maybe. Or maybe she's just that hurt.

But that can't be, you reassure yourself! Like she even cared that much about you in the first place. You're sure she's hooked up with someone else in the meantime.

She hasn't said anything for a minute or two, so you figure you're cleared to speak. "If I could get tutored by someone else I would, come on! But Querido didn't give me a list or anything, and I don't really have time to dick around asking the _other_ top students in our class if they want to give a hand to somebody they don't even know! You're kind of the only option here, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop being a giant piece of shit and just - just _do_ it!" Your voice rises hysterically towards the end , and for a second you think she might not have noticed, but there she is fanning her fingers out against her face and letting out a hard sigh.

"I'll say it again," she tells you. " _Why_ should I help?"

"Querido will fucking kill you!"

"I'll tell her that I was unable to help due to irreconcilable differences!"

You slam your hands down on the table, startling her and rattling the salt shaker. "Come the fuck on! God dammit!" You're practically shrieking now, because if she doesn't help, if she doesn't agree to tutor you, to stay with you, you are up eight fucking creeks with zero paddles and you don't know what you'll even _do_ , you'll go hunting with Paula and start a fistfight with a bear, you swear you will.

And then she's leaning over the table, her hands on yours - not polite, or gentle, or kind, but holding them down so you can't move them, her sharp fingertips digging into your wrists.

"I don't want to help you," she says.

Well, that's it. You're going to die.

"You hurt me. I'm not sure if you understand that, since you are completely morally defunct and have not made even a token effort to contact me." Her grip tightens; your fingers are starting to get pale. "You _hurt_ me," she says again, and you must be imagining the wobble in her voice. "And then you left. You owe me an apology, Victoria."

She leans in closer, her brow furrowed and her nose wrinkled in distaste - your stomach flops in agony when you realize that this is what you've dreamed about, being near to her again, and she looks like she wants to stab you through the chest. You can count her eyelashes and the creases in her chapped lips, and every time she lets out a breath it tickles your skin. You're practically flashing back to holding her in your arms, and before you realize it you're leaning in and pressing your lips to hers.

For about half a second, before she shoves you away hard enough that the back of your chair cracks.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" she growls. "I asked for an apology, not a seduction! I don't want to kiss you! I barely even want to touch you! You are so _predictable_ , always missing the point, ignoring what people really need!"

"Fuck you!" you spit, incoherent. "I tried to make up with you, it's on you now!"

"It is _not_ on me! Nothing is on me! This is your mess, and you need to clean it up!"

"Hell no!" you snarl, and regret it instantly - a kneejerk reaction. If you apologize that'd be admitting you were _wrong_ , and if you were wrong this disaster is all your fault, like everyone is telling you, and not hers for being... her. For being someone who makes you _want_ to apologize.

The both of you had risen out of your seats in anger, but now she settles back down and takes a few measured breaths before she speaks again. "I don't know what I expected from you, really."

"That's not what I meant! I meant, I meant hell no I'm not leaving here without getting your help!" You backpedal hard enough that you catch your feet actually shoving at the floor underneath you, but you manage to stop before you tip out of your chair and dump yourself on her kitchen floor like the fool you are.

"I should throw you out," she says, gritting her teeth.

"You can't throw me out! I thought we were _friends_!"

"So did I," Terri says quietly.

Oh.

You don't have a response to that. Everything you try to say catches on your clumsy tongue and teeth, so you just give up on trying. You sit there and hold your wrists, at a loss; after a while, Terri gets up and goes to the kitchen counter. You don't see what she's doing, because by then you've tipped forwards with your forehead against the table. No tears seem to want to come this time - there's just a hateful, gnawing emptiness that makes you want to shrivel up and blow away on the shitty wind of trying to deal with your emotions.

You pick your head up when you hear something slide across the table - it's a steaming mug of coffee. Terri has a mug of her own, clutched in her interlaced fingers.

You look at her face, the way the corners of her mouth are tugged tight, the dark circles under her beautiful eyes, and you come so close to apologizing that you have to bite down on your tongue so it doesn't come flying out.

Instead, you take a swig of hot coffee - it's just the way you like it, plenty of milk and no sugar - and swish it around to get the taste of blood and failure out of your mouth. Then, you take a deep breath, and steel yourself, and push your cup around on the table, and adjust your chair, and -

"Please?" you mumble, almost too quiet to hear.

Terri jerks upright, spilling coffee all over the table. " _What_?"

"I said," oh, shit, you can't get it out again. Your throat squeezes shut.

"I heard what you said. I - " She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. You look away, even though she can't see you, and stare at the spreading pool of coffee on the table. It's encroaching on your position. "...okay," she says, after the latest in a string of heavy pauses like space debris falling to earth.

You look up. "Okay?"

"Okay. I'll help. But if you so much as refuse to do one single extra credit prob - "

She's cut off when you leap out of your chair, sending it flying out of the kitchenette into the living room area with a loud skittering sound. You pump your arms in the air and do a little jig while she squawks, "Did you just break my chair?!"

You ignore her protests, as usual, and dance around the table to sweep her into your arms and spin her around. This time, she doesn't push you away.

When you put her down, she smirks and points to the book she "lent" you, something something learning to do awesome murders, and gestures for you to sit.

"That's as good a place to start as any," she tells you. "Let's get started."

You plop your ass back down in a fresh, un-Serketed chair and grin.

 


End file.
